Posted: 02/09/2007--25/11/2008 || Rate this Article: 3 || Views|| Sign In || Register ||Hello Guest
As a Chinese treatment, the potential for conflict between acupuncture and Christianity may seem inevitable. Unfortunately, this is true to some extent, but not overtly.
Acupuncture and Christianity
It is said that religion is a touchy subject. In some recent articles, American acupuncturists are being advised that it is best to be a bit sensitive to the religious issues involved in Traditional Chinese Medicine. It might be explained how the Communists made changes in Classical Chinese Medicine to transform it into Traditional Chinese Medicine and these changes mostly involved the removal of the more spiritual elements. It is suggested that it is a good idea to keep the statue of Buddha and the pictures of ancient Chinese Gods out of your office.
Acupuncture and Christianity is a topic that might be best not addressed, these articles advise, if you are seeking more patients. If your desire is to make more money and bring the benefits of Chinese Medicine to the people, keep the subject on the medical side of things and away from the spiritual. This sounds like sound business advice, but it also suggests that there is something in Chinese Medicine that is better left unsaid to Born Again Christians.
This is true. The most fundamental tenets of acupuncture and Christianity are in conflict in many ways. The idea of the balance of the force of Yin and the force of Yang and its relationship to the health, well being, and future of a person is a direct contradiction to the most fundamental concepts of Biblical Christianity. Fundamental Christians would go as far as to view acupuncture as a borderline occult practice.
A study of the history of acupuncture is not going to help this conflict. It is generally accepted that acupuncture and Classical Chinese Medicine had their roots in the Taoist teachings of ancient China. Although this would not even seem to be a religious set of beliefs by some in the West, it is exactly that. It is a religious set of beliefs that explains the relationship of man to the universe in which he resides. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism all define this same relationship, but in a very different manner.
It is a hard subject. There is no denying that acupuncture and Chinese Medicine in general have benefited millions of people, and is now slowly gaining ground in a land where it is certainly needed for the treatment of many ailments that Western Medicine is totally failing to address properly. In a World where so many are trying to bring together the best of all cultures and encourage and value diversity, Religion still remains a major stumbling block.
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