What's a Nice Christian Girl Like You Doing in a Field Like This?
One of the questions I am often asked by people is how I can work in energy medicine given the fact that I profess to follow Christ. This is usually asked by those who want to explore energy medicine but have been warned about New Age religions. They are nervous they might be getting involved in something that is spiritually questionable , if not downright forbidden. Or it is asked by people who know that this is a field that most Christians studiously avoid. I had a lot of these questions myself when I first started down this path. I spent time searching for answers because I did not want to be doing something wrong, or be leading others astray.
Our way of interpreting how life works is called our worldview. It is a filter through which we see life and it is built on the foundation of beliefs we have adopted. Christian philosopher, Cornelius Van Til, posited that there is no such thing as "just a fact"; every fact is an interpreted fact and how we interpret a fact is based on the bedrock belief system that we have about the nature of man, the existence of what is, and whether or not there is a God or gods. Thus, a person who holds that life evolved from the primordial slime that resulted from the Big Bang will arrive at radically different views and ethics than a person who believes that a loving Creator made all that is and governs and sustains it and us. The locus of authority for their actions is completely different. This is not to say that the only moral people are Christians (the plethora of scandals in the church at large puts the lie to that notion!). To the extent that someone speaks of something being "bad" or "good", they must borrow from a worldview that holds an objective standard outside of ourselves that is the measure for what is good. I believe that a loving Creator made all that is, and that when He made it, He declared it "very good." That means that every system and organ of the human body was very good in its original creation and intent, including the body's electrical system. It was Adam's belief that God was not good and was holding out on him that led to the action that brought chaos into the world and into our lives. Evil things and actions are a perversion of the Good. Wrong is always a parasite that grows off of the original good intent.
That the electromagnetic system exists is no longer in question -- we can measure it with things like electroencephalograms or electrocardiograms amongst others. My reasoning then was -- if it exists, God made it, and it is just as good and beneficial to find ways of improving and correcting it the same way we would if we found that the cardiovascular system needed help in functioning. Thus, my personal beliefs are not in contradiction with my chosen line of work.
Because God is good to all mankind, He gives revelation to all people as to how to heal themselves. There isn't a country in the world that exists without traditional healing medicines that people discovered over the years. One of the oldest healing systems developed in India and was carried over the Himalayan Mountains to Southeast Asia where it developed local flavors depending on the country you were in. We know it as Acupuncture. Both Ayurvedic and Traditional Chinese Medicine recognized the energetic qualities of foods, the different constitutions and how energy flow is enhanced or impeded by what we do to ourselves.
Mankind, being religious by nature, assigned religious meanings to what they experienced and discovered. The belief you attach to something doesn't invalidate the thing itself. I don't reject the findings of a scientist with Darwinian materialistic beliefs if he uses a legitimate method to discover how something works, and uses it in a moral way. I can extract the truth of a thing independent of the presuppositions of the person who discovered it. And that is what I basically did with energy medicine. Is Natural Bioenergetics a Christian practice? That is like asking if my crescent wrench is Christian. It's a tool. It's the ethics of the person using it and how skillfully the tool is used that determines the benefit of it. A crescent wrench can be used to fix something or to smash it. Energy medicine used with the wrong ethics attached and run backwards would be immoral and possibly a form of witchcraft, in the same way that giving a lethal dose of an otherwise good medication would be terribly wrong. As one who follows Christ and uses the practice of Natural Bioenergetics to assist in healing, I don't Bible thump the people who come through my door or show up on my zoom screen. My intention is to serve EVERYONE to the best of my ability no matter what their belief system or where they are in their own personal journey. Life stumbles all of us. NB helps with becoming un-stumbled.
