As I research who is out there in the world of alternative medicine, nutrition, and holistic concepts, Christians are few and far between. I wrote a blog post some time back wondering why it seemed that to join the holistic world, a Christian had to be mystical. A year later, I am getting ready to start taking the Natural Health Practitioner’s Diploma over at New Eden, (studying online), and the picture is getting a little clearer. (EDIT 2021: This ended up not happening till August 2021)
There are two aspects to the world of holistic, natural, and naturopathic healing. One aspect is highly spiritual, and often in ways that do not honour the One True God. The other aspect is highly nutritional, often in ways that leave mainstream medical practitioners offended. This offense has apparently been present down through civilized history, being recorded as far back as just a few hundred years after the fall of Rome. Those that teach foraging, the making of one’s own healing oils, tinctures, ointments, salves, and even just the concept of food as medicine as taught by Hippocrates himself, are considered fringe, out there, or worse. There was a time in history when anyone delving into such things was automatically labelled a witch.
Even today, New Age, Pagan, Wiccan, and apparently hippy mindsets and behaviours permeate a world of eating and treatments that really should be the world of the Christians instead. There are Christians out there who still think chiropractic adjustments are evil, and who look on natural medicine as somehow threatening. Counterfeit behaviours such as aligning energies, mindfulness, yoga, rewriting memories, and other methods known by alternative medicinal practitioners as “modalities” often mimic healthier alternatives found within the pages of Scripture.
Meditation for example, should not be done by emptying one’s mind. That is an invitation for demons to take up residence. No, not the demons that people think they’re fighting when they refer to bad habits, recurring problems, etc, but actual fallen angels. Yoga should be avoided by Christians at all costs, because it is worship to Hindu gods and goddesses. I once read that an Indian guru from somewhere in India was incensed that well over 200 poses had been “stolen” by western yoga gurus. Scripture tells us not to do as the heathen do in the futility of their thinking. Scripture also talks about positions that worship God, ranging from prostration face down on the ground to raising one’s hands to singing, to dancing, to kneeling, to looking toward heaven. Instead of rewriting the memories of what brought us to where we are, we are to bring those memories to God and allow Him to use them to make us into a better person, redeeming them if you will, never wasting an experience but working all things together for our good. When Christians are truly submitted to the Holy Spirit’s efforts in their lives, the idea of getting on the same page to be about His business is done by sending time in His Word and in prayer. When we do this, it is not uncommon to find ourselves “on the same wave length” so to speak, with other Christians near us, and sometimes even half way around the world, being led of God to pray or take action that benefits others also tuned in. When we bring our lives into line with how God wants us to live, we are given the means to carry out what God has called us to do.
The crazy thing about the lack of Christians in the holistic space, is that we have a personal relationship with the God who created every plant and animal on this planet. He created every mineral ever mined, every water reservoir ever found. When God said that His Word is good for training in all righteousness, that means training in right living. If you want to treat the mind, look at what the Holy Spirit has given us for information on how the mind works. Scientists continue to prove Scripture correct as they learn more and more about how the human body and brain works. They continue to prove God correct the more they learn about how the human mind works. But to point this out is often considered sacrilegious to those who worship evolution. But if we believe the dictionary definition of holistic as “body, soul and spirit”, who better to address these three areas in a way that honours God and makes use of His Guidebook, than those who know Him personally?! Christians have dropped the ball on this repeatedly over the centuries.
Both as a Christian and as an author, I began to get mildly intrigued that books have begun popping up over the past 20 years purporting to offer diets from the Scriptures. What seems strange as I read the book blurbs and reviews of these books by others, is the idea that God somehow frowns on the concept of eating meat. I read a blog post just this past week (see timestamp of blog post for context) where someone of a clergy level was telling people this very thing, even as New Testament Scripture warns that anyone commanding to not eat meat is leading you astray. I shook my head.
I’ve decided to do a quick run-through pulling up verses in the KJV (could be others in other translations, I just like the KJV personally) referring to food, meat, and briefly, Passover. The word “meat” in the KJV is used in some places to refer to food from animals, and in others to refer to food in general, whether or not meat is actually present. The term is a catchall referring to what you eat. However, based on today’s push for everyone to go vegetarian or vegan, many of these verses are now quite controversial.
I also went through the Scriptures looking for health-related passages. In the KJV that means searching for words such as health, wine, balm, etc.
New Eden’s Natural Health Practitioner Diploma lets me customize half the required credits for graduation, and I intend to include the Biblical nutrition/health track for sure. There is a historical nutrition track, a herbology track, and a few others that I will pull from to round out the program. But it seriously isn’t necessary to bow to false gods to receive alternative medicinal benefit. God’s Word gives us all we need for life and godliness right within it’s pages. The astute student of God’s Word will recognize many references to Scripture that I haven’t specifically pointed out here. But I seriously feel like slightly rewriting that old song, “Why should the devil have all the good music!”. . .
