Being a natural medicine practitioner and being a Christian can be hazardous. Regardless of how orthodox your Christian beliefs may be, you regularly get called a “New Ager,” something akin to being of a minority race and having a racial epithet hurled at you. Many Christians are really stirred up about how most everything, including health care, is being taken over by New Age beliefs. Unfortunately, a lot of these “New Age witch hunters” write books, speak on Christian radio, and are on the Who’s Who list of the Christian community. It is a battle . . . one I’ve found myself in the middle of.
Since I began clinical practice in 1983 I have been speaking out on this subject. I’ve lost friends who were seduced into New Age Paranoia, and I’ve even lost two employees, victims of the witch hunt. One wrote an 11 page hate letter to various leaders and radio station managers I deal with (and then later retracted the letter and asked my forgiveness).
A Christian magazine (which doesn’t deserve to be named) several years ago said:
“There is a growing movement of Christian practitioners of wholistic health, and of Christians who turn to such treatments for their physical maladies. Perhaps the most articulate and vigorous spokesperson for this movement is Monte Kline, Ph.D. . . . “
I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not. I’m kind of thorn in the side of the New Age witch hunters — since I’m more doctrinally orthodox than most of them are, I stand in the way of their broad brush painting all natural medicine practitioners as “New Age.” As a former pastor once told me:
You’re nobody till somebody hates you!
In this article I want to delineate the difference between a biblically-sound natural medicine approach and the New Age ideology.
NEW AGE THOUGHT
One of the results of the current paranoia is that some Christians are running around saying this and that are “New Age,” yet they don’t really understand what the New Age philosophy is. Doug Groothuis in Unmasking the New Age lists six fundamentals of New Age thinking:
- All is one
- All is God
- Humanity is God
- Consciousness must be changed
- All religions are one
- Cosmic evolutionary optimism
Excuse me, but as a Christian, I don’t believe any of that, nor do other Christians involved in natural medicine. Yet a lot of people and practices are being labeled “New Age” that in no way embrace a New Age philosophy.
PRACTICE OR PRACTITIONER?
Let me pose a question: Can a particular health practice, such as applied kinesiology (muscle testing) or electro-dermal testing, as done at my clinics, be “New Age,” or can only a person be “New Age”? Methods do not have beliefs — only people do. Thus I believe that the epithet “New Age” can only be applied to a person who holds such beliefs. The methods, the practices are basically neutral.
The most New Age practitioner in town may be your medical doctor or dentist, depending on what he or she believes. It may also be your chiropractor, naturopath, massage therapist, or nutritionist, depending on what he or she believes. The point is simply this: Focus on the practitioner, not the practice. Most anything can be used in an occultic, satanic way, depending on the spiritual condition of the practitioner.
GUILTY BY ASSOCIATION?
Natural medicine practices frequently are judged with a “guilty by association” reasoning. Let’s take acupuncture, as perhaps the best known area of “energetic medicine.” The reasoning of the critics goes like this: (1) Acupuncture was founded in China; (2) People in China practiced a false religious system out of which this was developed; and therefore (3) Acupuncture is false and Christians shouldn’t have anything to do with acupuncture.
Then I come along, “vigorous and articulate spokesperson” that I am, and ask, “What else was discovered in China?” How about porcelain (that’s the reason you call your good dishes “china”)? Here we go again: (1) Porcelain was discovered in China; (2) People in China practice a false religious system out of which this was developed; and therefore (3) Christians should eat off of paper plates! Oops! Can’t do that either — paper was also discovered in China! I guess we can only use plastic plates!
“FLAT EARTH” CHRISTIANITY
Christians tend toward paranoia with anything outside their realm of knowledge, including certain aspects of natural medicine. Regrettably, the Church has historically rejected new truth in favor of old traditions. For centuries, with the full support of the Church, the world was considered flat. Those suggesting the world was round were considered heretics. Though some may have cited literalistic interpretations of passages referring to “the four corners of the earth” as contradictory with anything other than a flat earth, for most people a round earth was just offensive to their traditions.
How can the world be round? After all, wouldn’t we just fall off or sail off the edge? Seems silly today, because we know some additional principles of God’s creation such as gravity. To bring it up to date with energetic medicine practice, how can someone’s arm go weak just holding white sugar (Applied Kinesiology)? How can a glass test vial with a microdilution of something in it change the electrical resistance on your skin (Electro-Dermal Testing)?
Are we really any different than our forebears in the 15th century? What natural laws that explain various natural medicine practices are yet to be elucidated? Dare we assume that we know all that is to be known about God’s Creation? Copernicus and Galileo were regarded as heretics for suggesting that the earth was not the center of the solar system. Though their scientific teaching in no way was contradicted by Scripture (which was silent on the subject), nevertheless it was a new and therefore unacceptable idea.
RELIGIOUS SUPERSTITION?
I’ll bet you thought religious superstition went out with the Middle Ages? No, it’s alive and well with the New Age Witch Hunters and their victims. Christopher S. Deatherage, N.D. writes:
A review of church history shows us that the lowest points in any age are those that have been remembered for their religious superstition. Those who are religiously superstitious are those who have an unreasonable, unbiblical state of paranoia about spirits and suspect evil spirits and black magic everywhere . . .
GLORIFYING SATAN?
The New Age witch hunters cite demonic power for everything from homeopathic medicine to acupuncture to applied kinesiology to chiropractic to even Christian psychology. Let me ask this: Who gets the glory when we’re constantly looking for Satan behind every bush? Nowhere in the Bible does it tell me to search for Satan, but it repeatedly tells me to search for the Lord.
What is all this preoccupation with Christians today asking, “Did God do this or did Satan?” “Is this practice okay or is this occult?” God help us! Why must God’s children continually act as if Satan created part of the universe? I have good news for you — Satan never created anything! Nowhere in Scripture is creative power ever ascribed to Satan. Satan is only a counterfeiter and perverter of God’s creation.
God created the meridian energies that we test with Electro-Dermal Testing and Applied Kinesiology. Satan has perverted those truths by intertwining the concept of “energy” into false religions. Will you deny God’s creation just because Satan also has counterfeits? Will you throw out the baby with the bath water? If you do that what will you have left of God’s creation? What good, true thing has God created that Satan has not perverted in some way — nutrition, education, money, the family, sex, fire, nuclear energy, etc.?
IS CHRIST’S LORDSHIP ADEQUATE?
Isn’t it enough to receive Christ, submit to His Lordship, have the Scriptures and let Him lead your life? Must we have our modern day, man-mad Talmud of Christian books on top of all that to tell us what we can and cannot do? Whatever happened to the discernment God’s Spirit gives? For that matter, whatever happened to common sense?
Why do books have to be written warning Christians against supposed “New Age” practices? Why do authors insist upon adding more rules beyond God’s Word. Why can’t they just say “get into the Bible, pray for discernment and keep Christ central in all you do” and trust God to lead in people’s lives? Well, for one thing, it doesn’t sell many books!
POT vs. KETTLE
The usual pattern of the New Age witch hunters (after condemning most natural medicine practices as satanic) is to recommend conventional medicine, saying nothing of its occultic history and humanistic teachings. Conventional medicine is based on evolution as its foundation, not God’s creation of the body. Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, was a priest in a Pagan temple. The Hippocratic Oath, previously taken by all M.D.’s begins with these words:
I swear by Apollo the Physician, and Aesculapius and Hygeia, and Panacea, and all the gods and goddesses . .
It is an absolute, crystal clear violation of Scripture (Ex. 20:2-3; Matt. 5:34-37) for a believer to take the Hippocratic Oath. So where are the New Age witch hunters on this? Their inconsistency is pathetic!
DEALING WITH “NEW AGE PARANOIA”
- Ask for Scripture — Ask a New Age witch hunter for specific scripture that contradicts some natural medicine practice. In the vernacular this is called “put up or shut up.”
- Ask how much they know — Ask “How much do you know of all that God created?” After they hopefully say, “Not much,” ask them, “Could the natural medicine principles I’m using maybe, just maybe exist outside your knowledge in the other 99.9999% of the universe? Thus deal with the arrogance of partial knowledge.
- Ask for fruit — Ask the critic to show you bad fruit coming from Christians practicing supposedly “New Age” medicine. Ask them to show you the patients or clients that have gotten into the occult, left the Church, or otherwise become infidels. I’ve never seen any of this in 15 years of practicing natural, “energetic” medicine techniques with thousands of Christians.
- Ask if they oppose conventional medicine — As noted above far more biblical conflicts can be found with conventional medicine than with natural medicine. Do they have a double standard?
Remember, in the end, truth will win out!
Better Health Update is published by Pacific Health Center, PO Box 1066, Sisters, Oregon 97759, Phone (800) 255–4246 with branch clinics in Boise, Idaho, Post Falls, Idaho and Portland, Oregon. E-Mail: drkline@pacifichealthcenter.com. Monte Kline, Clinical Nutritionist, Author. Reproduction Prohibited.
DISCLAIMER: The information contained in this publication is for educational purposes only. It is not intended to diagnose illness nor prescribe treatment. Rather, this material is designed to be used in cooperation with your nutritionally-oriented health professional to deal with your personal health problems. Should you use this information on your own, you are prescribing for yourself, which is your constitutional right, but neither the author nor publisher assume responsibility.