Herbs and Herbal Therapy: An Acceptable Choice for Christians?
Herbal medicine philosophy is the oldest and most tried form of medical treatment, and is used today by 80% of the world’s population as primary healthcare[1]! For most American consumers, however, due to the unbridled telling of scare-mongering stories by medical and popular press, there remains a lingering concern that herbs are not as useful, safe or well-researched as their conventional counterparts.
In view of the overwhelming array
of options and expert opinions surrounding us in our healthcare decision
making, thankfully—as Christians—we can compare each idea and treatment we come
across, including herbal therapy, alongside the principles of God’s Word. Is
its use as medicine an acceptable, moral choice for a Christian? I believe it
absolutely is, and here are my reasons!
1. It is in Accordance with God’s Design & Spoken of
Favorably in Scripture
The scripture celebrates God’s creation of plants. Not only does He mention them 59 times in the
Old and New Testaments together, but in almost every case He is praising the
fragrance, beauty or inherent worth of the plants mentioned.
In Genesis 1:29 we read that the means of nourishment
that God originally presented mankind with was “every plant yielding seed that
is on the face of the earth”[2]. He
also clearly demonstrates His approval of all plants and foods for consumption,
by pronouncing all food “good”[3] in
four different New Testament books, and going further to say that we should not
let anyone “denounce” us for eating something for which we thank God.[4]
Did you know that God even prescribed
herbs to His people at one point in the Bible? One of the most interesting
mentions of herbs in scripture is God’s requirement that Israelites who had
been contaminated by an infectious skin disease or mildew be sprinkled with
water and the herb hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis). Hyssop is known as a
powerful disinfectant due to its terpenoid (pinene, camphene and tirpinene)
content, and has been of interest to the scientific community even in recent
years because of its ability to inhibit multiple species of bacteria[5]
and treat malaria. This connection of
impurity with the purifying action of an herb brings new meaning to King
David’s agonized cry to his forgiving God to, “Cleanse me with hyssop and I
will be clean”[6]!
2. Herbs Have a Long History of Study and Use
We tend to forget
that herbal therapy is the earliest form of medicine, and has endured through thousands
of years of testing and experience. Not to mention, a lot of drugs that we take
without questioning have only been around for, at the most, 200 years.
3. Herbal Therapy is Often a Safer, More Effective Choice
than Pharmaceutical Drugs
For certain, it would be irresponsible and unwise to use, as
Christians, any medication or therapy that is more detrimental than healthful
to our bodies if we know of a better option . . . but is this more likely to be
a danger with herbal medicine (as media can incline us to think), or drugs?
According to the FDA, every year in
the US Hong Kong ,
China
“Since 2001, a recorded 490,000 people have died
from properly prescribed drugs in the United States, while 2,996 people died on
U.S. soil from terrorism, all in the 9/11 attacks; prescription drugs are
therefore 16,400 percent more dangerous than terrorism. If deaths from
over-the-counter drugs are also included, then drug consumption leaps to being
32,000 percent more dangerous than terrorism. And conventional medicine viewed
as a whole is 104,700 percent deadlier than terrorism.”[10]
Going beyond even these
enlightening statistics, it would be helpful to understand the elemental
differences between pharmaceutical drugs and herbs, and the role that
difference plays in the safety and efficacy of their total effect on the body.
That difference lies in the concept of synergy. Herbs, like all food we find in
nature, are a complex combination of a great number of chemical substances—each
of which interacts to produce the total medicinal effect (one of the chemical
components, for example, having an enhancing or decreasing action on another
certain chemical in the plant; others influencing the stability,
bioavailability or solubility of the plant’s properties, etc.). It could
perhaps be better explained this way:
“The
vast majority of medicinal herbs contain dozens of different compounds, often
of great complexity, [such as] mucilages, tannins, polysaccharides etc. that
buffer, modulate and modify the effects of any ‘active principles’.”[11]
Compare this to drugs, which are almost
always made up of a single chemical constituent isolated from the other dozens
of components of the plant and administered in complete strength.
The complex, synergistic makeup of
herbs seems to be more consistent with the intricate physiological systems of
the human body, and it’s highly possible this major discrepancy also holds the
reason why most herbs do not carry as many side effects as drugs. As Mills and
Bone say in “Principles and Practice of Phytotherapy”, “While many conventional
drugs or their precursors are derived from plants, there is a fundamental
difference between administering a pure chemical and the same chemical in a
plant matrix.”[12] This difference might be the variance between
true health and something less than that.
The second major difference between
herbal medicine and drugs (and the second reason herbal medicine is often safer
and more effective in the long run) is that, on the most foundational level,
herbs, like foods (as chemically complex), are nourishing, and have a nourishing
effect on the body, while pharmaceutical drugs (as potent, pure isolates) exert
a strictly specific action and put into motion undesirable effects that number
almost, at times, in excess of it’s positive ones. These side effects often
include damage to vital organs and memory loss, according to Mayo clinic.[13] While
drugs are designed to treat only the overt symptoms caused by a disease and not
the body as a whole (in effect, only bandaiding the symptom—which often leads
to only more symptoms), herbal therapeutic strategy is to assist the body’s own
healing capabilities—by gently supporting and encouraging the various body systems
and their innate processes (which then relieves symptoms as a consequence). Explains
one herbalist,
“This
is a crucial difference. For example, serum
arthritic conditions are conventionally treated with steroid anti-inflammatory
drugs. These have widespread and disturbing side effects, which at sustained
high doses become intolerable and potentially dangerous if not lethal. The
herbal approach to these conditions uses dietary modification of metabolism;
facilitation of elimination via kidneys and hepatic/biliary routes; stimulation
of circulation in the affected regions, moistening of dry synovia, etc. Topical
treatments for acute joint pain or systemic anti-inflammatory herbs that help
joint pain are used as required, but this is not the thrust of the treatment
strategy. Lay persons often make the related mistake of seeking a "natural
alternative" to a pharmaceutical they have been prescribed rather than
challenging the diagnosis and therapeutic strategy.”[14]
Take this illustration as an example of this
kind of thinking:
“If
you have a rock in your shoe, wouldn’t you agree that it’s better to take off
your shoe and remove the rock versus taking an ibuprofen so that you don’t feel
the pain it’s causing?”[15]
Herbal therapy gets to the core of
a diseased body’s needs and supplies the body with the tools it needs to repair
itself as it was fashioned by God to do. This philosophy is inherently
constructive as opposed to the destructive effects often inevitably put into
play by prescription drug use.
These conclusions should not lead
us to assume that modern medicine is uncalled-for and needless. The
overwhelming benefit of drugs used in emergency medical services in particular
cannot be overstated. It would be irresponsible to refuse conventional drugs
and care in times of severe conditions or emergency. A good herbalist pairs his
“less is more” and naturalistic viewpoint with prudence in this area—always
seeking to begin a patient’s therapy in a beginning-stage disease with the
least invasive means (using herbs, nutrition, and exercise to facilitate healing),
but painstakingly monitoring improvement and adjusting to more invasive therapy
if the health issue ends up exceeding the scope of the initial protocol’s
effects. He might administer infusions of hawthorn to lower borderline high
blood pressure—a great, often highly effective alternative to giving a patient a
drug for lowering blood pressure—and his protocol might just be entirely successful
without the patient ever needing to take a drug; however, he will also be the
first to realize his patient’s condition has been complicated by other health
issues, and now requires a quicker fix than herbal therapy can provide.
Conclusion
When trying to discern if an idea that is only indirectly
treated in scripture is Biblical in nature or supported by Biblical principles,
I ask myself questions. Is it line with God’s design in creation? Is it in line
with God’s communicated Word? All things are permissible, but is this constructive
and beneficial? Since the Lord calls our bodies His temple, we are to
seek to wisely take care of them[16].
Out of honor for Him, we should use discretion in our choices of care,
implementing what knowledge we (and others certified in healthcare) have, and
try to go the healthiest route. Truly, it all comes down to doing all to the
glory of God and prayerfully seeking His will in all decision making. In
Christ, we are free from human regulations that say “Do not handle! Do not
taste! Do not touch!”[17],
but by the same token are called to walk in the counsel of the Holy Spirit the
Lord has placed inside us and make wise decisions.
I believe herbal therapy stands up
well to my questioning and fits right into this Biblical model. I also believe
it goes well beyond it to offer substantial advantages and protective safeguards
not provided by other forms of medicine. As an herbalist, I treasure the opportunity to help my clients regain health, safely and effectively and abundantly—inside
and out!
Additional references:
- Ezekiel 47:12: “Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing”.
- Rev. 22:2: “The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations”.
Readers: What is your perspective on this discussion? Would you add or discard any of my points?
[1]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3210006/
[2] Gen. 1:29
[3] Mark 7:19 ,
1 Tim. 4:4, Acts 10:15 , 1 Cor. 10:30.
[4] 1 Tim. 4:4
[5]Goulart HR, Kimura EA, Peres VJ, Couto
AS, Duarte
[6]Psalm 51:7
[7]http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DevelopmentApprovalProcess/DevelopmentResources/DrugInteractionsLabeling/ucm110632.htm
[8] https://aapcc.s3.amazonaws.com/pdfs/annual_reports/2013_NPDS_Annual_Report.pdf
[9] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2700222/
[10] http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/04/12/the-terrifying-side-effects-of-prescription-drugs.aspx
[11] http://www.henriettes-herb.com/faqs/medi-5-1-side-effects.html
[12] Principles and Practice
of Phytotherapy, Mills and Bone
[13] http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/high-blood-cholesterol/in-depth/statin-side-effects/art-20046013?pg=1
[14] http://www.henriettes-herb.com/faqs/medi-5-1-side-effects.html
[15] http://thewholejourney.com/about-twj
[16] 1 Cor. 6:19-20
[17] Col.
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