country uncritically extolling homeopathy and herbs, and Christians can easily be found who proselytize aggressively for alternative medicine, using testimonies of “alternative” practices being more effective, more natural, more spiritual, and the morally superior choice for health care.
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What is happening to the Christian community?
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“Alternative medicine” is flowering. Ignored in this groundswell of enthusiasm is that much of alternative medicine is rooted in, or enmeshed with, the New Age world view, antiquated science, superstition, magic, and ritual.
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What is “Alternative” Medicine?
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”Alternative” medicine is a term often interchanged with “holistic,” “nontraditional,” “complementary,” “mind/ body,” “New Age,” and “unconventional” when describing medical treatments and theories of disease which originate outside the realm of scientifically based medicine and the natural sciences.
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A preliminary problem in looking at alternative medicine is to define what it actually is. In defining “alternative” medicine one thing is clear: Whatever it is, it is not “regular” medicine - its proponents would add - “yet.”
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Alternative versus regular medical practices should not be thought of as a choice between “separate but equal” systems. A 1993 study in the New England Journal of Medicine described what many call “alternative” medicine as “unconventional.” Unconventional therapies are those “not taught widely at US medical schools or generally available at US hospitals.” Unconventional was additionally described as “those medical practices which are not in conformity with the standards of the medical community” (“Unconventional Medicine,” January 28, 1993, pp. 246-52).
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“Alternative” health practices are of concern because many of those practices make claims of diagnostic capabilities, or for treatment, which are unsubstantiated by reasonable means as effective and beneficial. In contrast, “conventional” medicine is based on scientific standards established by objective evidence for effectiveness, safety, and benefit. Practices which meet these basic standards are no longer “alternative” - they are mainstream.
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Christians understand that the physical world is a creation of God. This physical world and its components operate in systematic, orderly ways which can be discovered. Practically speaking, a basic system of how to discover things about the physical world and the laws that govern it has been developed over many years. This is called the scientific method.
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Over the past few centuries science has emerged from the realm of alchemy, magic, and the occult, using the scientific method. So now there is a base of consistent, orderly, growing knowledge about the workings of God’s creation. The scientific method provides a framework by which one can evalu
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