Alternative medicine's increasing popularity challenges conventional scientific medicine as well as mainstream religion. Both challenges to the status quo arise from focus on spirituality that alternative medicine manifests in its beliefs and practice. Emphasizing the spiritual dimension of healing and health provides the "alternative" perspective of alternative medicine, also known as "holistic," "mind-body," "integrated," "complementary medicine," or "spiritual healing." The spirituality of alternative medicine accounts for much of its popular appeal.¹

The statistics of the U.S. boom in alternative medicine are by now familiar. In 1997 more than 42 percent of Americans used some form of alternative medicine. During the same year the country's consumers made 629 million visits to alternative practitioners. More people visited alternative providers than primary care physicians and they paid more than $27 billion out of pocket to do so.² Such a widespread social movement can be analyzed through many different lenses: economic, legal, sociological, political, anthropological, or as a media phenomenon. Here I examine some of the fundamental intellectual claims in conflict, first between alternative medicine and mainstream medicine and then between holistic medicine's spirituality and mainstream Christianity. Paying more attention to these basic differences should help resolve many of the political, legal, and practical problems that await if and when mainstream medicine and culture accept alternative medicine.

Most of alternative medicine gradually will be integrated into conventional medicine, and that the spirituality underlying much of alternative medicine can be welcomed by mainstream Christianity, albeit with some reservations.

CHALLENGES TO CONVENTIONAL MEDICINE
Given the diversity of beliefs and practices that are called "alternative medicine" a skeptical observer could safely define it as what is not currently being taught in medical schools. This negative approach is inadequate. There really are common characteristics and a common core of beliefs and assumptions that underlie the movement's diverse manifestations.³

Insisting on a holistic approach to health, alternative medicine consistently rejects the tenets of secular modernistic dogmas adopted during the Enlightenment. No whole person can be reduced to his or her organic subsystems, or be categorized as a set of symptoms of a disease. A human being consists of a mind/body/spirit unity energized by a vital healing life force that strives for health and wholeness.

Moreover, other transcendent healing forces exist in the universe, and prayer, imagery or other rituals can invoke them for healing. The healer's role becomes one of encouraging people to take responsibility for the processes of their own healing. While many of the healing techniques employed in holistic medicine originated within a specific religious perspective, today the practices' religious origins have faded. Some observers see the evolving spirituality of alternative medicine as a synthesized, stripped down, or "secular" spirituality that is pragmatic and eschews doctrinal and institutional boundaries.⁴ Practitioners employ various syntheses of Eastern and Western spiritual traditions, but all the beliefs underlying alternative medicine oppose the secular modernism of conventional scientific medicine, with its fundamental assumptions of reductive materialism, empiricism, atomism, and universally applicable laws.⁵

In alternative medicine health and illness exist on a continuum and health amounts to more than the absence of illness. The balance of health over illness depends to a large extent on the individual's own life choices and environmental factors. Thus, holistic medicine focuses on the underlying causes and not just on removing symptoms. The sick person can view her illness as an opportunity to reassess her life and change it for the better. Only progress on her spiritual path toward balance and wholeness brings true healing. Individuals transcend their parts and experience healing spiritual actions which, like prayer, can work at a distance.

Alternative health practitioners generally consider the "spirit" to be, at a minimum, that aspect of the whole person which consists of core beliefs, deep aspirations, and cognitive and emotional powers of will and desire. The holistic and dynamic self-conscious choices of a person's spirit are as important to health as the physiological systems. Most alternative practitioners don't deny the effect of the body on the mind and spirit, but they view the mind and spirit's effect upon the body as more important in restoring and maintaining health. Even if a physiological cure of an illness is not possible, spiritual healing and holistic growth can take place.

Naturally many opponents of alternative medicine object most forcefully to the focus on immaterial spiritual causation. Such skeptics charge that alternative medicine is an antiscientific and dangerous retreat from reason. The debunkers feel duty bound to defend science and reason by attacking the claims and practices of alternative medicine as "a variety of snake oil," or a "holistic hoax."⁶ The skeptics warn the public that there is no scientific evidence for the effectiveness of most of alternative medicine and plenty of reason to worry about the gullibility of people who can be defrauded, if not harmed physically.

Here it is important to point out that methodologies of research and inquiry are never neutral or theory free.⁷ Research methods are not simply transparent ways to explore reality but are themselves theory driven and infused by theoretical assumptions. Research methods always embody their own assumptions about the reality of the world; these foundational assumptions determine which procedures will be used and what kind of results will count as valid. The materialistic presumption that measurements must be made and functions explained makes it difficult to study subjective consciousness or interpersonal relationships. Obviously you cannot see or touch a person's faith, hope, love, beliefs, trust, or feelings of being cared for. How can you objectively measure a sense of inner healing and wholeness? Complex realities that transcend physiology and operate only in unique circumstances may not be detected by medicine's gold standard of research, the randomized double-blind experiment.

Considering the way the core beliefs of alternative medicine diverge from conventional medicine's worldview and methods accommodation might seem impossible.

PATHS AND STRATEGIES FOR PLURALISTIC ACCOMODATION
Despite these disagreements, alternative medicine's assimilation into conventional medicine has already begun.⁸ This assimilation is likely to increase as three different intellectual processes of validation take place.

First, by establishing the Office of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, the National Institute of Health has made more funding available to conduct conventional scientific testing of holistic medicine's diverse claims. Open-minded physicians and scientists will accept those practices and treatments that are tested and found effective because conventional medicine's own standards of research will have validated them.

While materialistic research methods may be unable to detect or explain subtle human processes of activated self-consciousness, certain physiological health outcomes and behavioral effects will be robust enough to be measured empirically. Already conventional physicians are gradually and grudgingly accepting the positive health benefits from practices of meditation, stress-reduction techniques, regular religious worship, social support, optimism, hardiness, disclosure of secrets, massage, perceived control, and positive expectations (the powerful placebo effect).⁹ Negative health outcomes are correlated with stress, cynicism, hostility, mania, depression, loneliness, and grief.

While no one in any discipline can explain how human consciousness emerges, how it relates to the brain's physical material, human attitudes, beliefs, emotions, and interpersonal relationships clearly affect the body. The new field of psychoneuroimmunology, for example, studies how mental and emotional states affect the immune system, and vice versa.¹⁰

Second, much of conventional medicine and conventional research techniques have not kept up with advances in other scientific fields. Conventional scientific medicine is still based on a Newtonian model of science, while physics itself has become much more complex.¹¹ When new findings of physics and the human sciences become integrated into medicine, many of the holistic claims of alternative medicine will not appear so far-fetched. The universe appears to be much weirder more and holistically constituted, at least at the micro level, than the assumptions of the Newtonian worldview. (Even nonlocal activity and causation at a distance seems to occur in physics).

Certainly psychology's "consciousness revolution" has transformed the discipline in the last three decades. Behaviorism's materialistic contention that the mind, self, and consciousness are irrelevant epiphenomena has been overturned. New understandings of the power of subjective consciousness, human emotion and cognition have created new subdisciplines and the interdisciplinary field of cognitive science.¹² Brain imaging techniques offer evidence of the mind's active power to process information and direct behavior.¹³ Scientists have also advanced the study of altered states of consciousness such as hypnosis, trance, sleep, and dreams.¹³ Many of these phenomenas have long been considered important and useful in non-Western spiritualities and alternative therapies.

An expanded science of psychology and neuropsychology focusing on consciousness will continue to develop, supporting many of alternative medicine's claims about the mind's effects on the body. New and more subtle research techniques, some involving brain imagery and new qualitative methods, hover on the horizon. These techniques will make it easier either to validate or finally to refute certain claims resulting in mind-body medicine's incorporation into science. At the same time, the "human spirit" may be demystified because it will be identified with psychological capacities of human consciousness. If this occurs, it will have the ironic effect of subsuming much of what has been called alternative medicine's spirituality into the psychology of consciousness. The stripped-down and secular spirituality characterizing holistic medicine will be assimilated into a beefed-up psychobiosocial science of the mind. A harbinger of this development can be seen in alternative practitioner Jon Kabat-Zinn's resistance to using the word "spirituality"; he prefers to talk of his work teaching stress-reduction meditation and mindfulness, as practicing a "consciousness discipline."¹⁴

Even the transcendent healing forces assumed in much of alternative medicine's spirituality may be understood as naturally occurring group effects and species interconnections. Already, ecology and other studies of field forces point to the ways all life is interdependent and affected by socioenvironmental conditions. A Navajo healing ceremony which includes the whole community in complex rituals will not seem alien or superstitious when science recognizes the power of subjective and interconnected group consciousness.

At the same time, that conventional scientific medicine will continue to progress and remain a powerful and accepted part of any new integrated approach to healing. Scientific medicine has been successful because its perspectives on physiology and the material world's biological and chemical operations have largely been accurate. In fact, modern technological medicine is one of the great achievements of human reason, validating the scientific method and exemplifying the human will to relieve suffering. It is misguided to assign the power and popularity of scientific medicine solely to the continuing social dominance of Western elites who impose their perspective on reality. No, modern scientific medicine persists because it works and has brought benefits to millions. Laws of matter and nature exist, but to say that this is all that exists is too narrow a perspective. Once scientific medicine gives up an outmoded mind-body dualism inherited from Descartes, it can expand its perspectives and effectiveness.

In the history of ideas and theories, in and out of science, we have seen concepts move from the fringe to the center and back out. Socioeconomic factors and changing cultural interpretations play a part in the acceptance of new ideas, but human reasoning and the experience of reality hold greater weight. Theories win because their arguments accord with reason, factual evidence, and experience. In the future, integration of alternative medicine into traditional medicine will take place when reasoned judgments conclude that integrating the two approaches best reflects the universe's material and spiritual complexities.

But if alternative medicine is gradually winning acceptance in science and society, will its underlying spiritual beliefs also be accepted by mainstream Christianity?

CHALLENGES TO MAINSTREAM CHRISTIANITY
Alternative medicine and the underlying spirituality of its worldview challenge mainstream Christianity. This spirituality de-emphasizes particular doctrines and institutional ties while incorporating elements from Eastern, Western and Native American practices.¹⁵

Here I will use Roman Catholicism as my example of a traditional mainstream Christian faith that possesses a highly developed doctrinal and institutional character as well as its own traditions of spirituality. I write as a Catholic committed to the reforms of Vatican II and to its ideal of an ever-evolving church that is loyal to its life-giving Gospel tradition. I am also engaged in American Catholic intellectual life and am particularly interested in the dialogue between religion and science.¹⁶ As a psychologist, I am most intrigued by the relationship of psychology to religion. The following opinions are my own, but I doubt they are at variance with other mainstream Catholic thinkers.

Mainstream Christianity should be welcome, with certain reservations, the new spirituality of alternative medicine. On the whole, the rise of alternative medicine in American culture brings good news for the faith. The spiritual worldview underlying alternative medicine challenges a secular establishment that has for too long dismissed religion. Reductionistic materialism and doctrinaire antireligious assumptions have reigned among certain elites. In the present climate of intellectual ferment and cultural change it is no longer quite so easy to arrogantly dismiss spiritual realities and the transcendent capacities of human consciousness.

Happily, alternative medicine's emphasis on positive, transcendent healing forces in the universe is in accord with many traditional Christian doctrines including the idea of a benevolent God of love Who creates, sustains, and redeems the world. Healing hearts and minds is the Holy Spirit's work, in all places and at all times, so although a non-Christian spirituality may not explicitly identify the powers of healing as orthodox Christianity does, the Spirit still works.¹⁷

Other beliefs and practices of alternative medicine also echo Christian tradition. The power of prayer to effect good, and the potency of group prayer for healing others, are long-held Christian beliefs. Holistic medicine's avowal of the interconnections of all elements of reality resonates with Christianity's teaching that humankind exists as one interdependent family, one body, embedded in a communion of saints both living and dead that transcends time. The healing power of vicarious and face-to-face prayer, and the laying on of hands has always been central to Christian beliefs and sacramental practices.

In the Christian scriptures a God of love is revealed as the divine healer of all wounds. Christ's example and teaching inspire the historic Christian ministries of healing and works of mercy, including hospitals and religious orders dedicated to caring for the sick and indigent. The rise of spiritual healing in alternative medicine can only revive and encourage the Church's own healing ministries.

Alternative medicine's assertion that spiritual healing can take place even if a physiological cure cannot be effected affirms the power of the spirit in the same manner that Christianity sees the Holy Spirit at work. Christians believe that the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit can coexist with suffering and illness, as well as with persecution and other tragic life events. The Spirit's gift of joy can be received in the midst of the world's ills. (Psychology helps explain this with new research that demonstrates how the sources and pathways of positive and negative emotions may be independent and therefore can be simultaneously activated).¹⁸ Joy and suffering are not always a zero-sum game but can be felt simultaneously in complex configurations of multidimensioned human persons. Thus, as much of alternative medicine affirms, to struggle toward health and wholeness is not simply a matter of removing symptoms and impairments; the spiritual path may have triumphs, even if disease and death cannot be cured.

Christians believe that God's Spirit works to bring the best outcomes possible whenever illness and other evils befall human beings. Unfortunately, in the past the experience of God's Spirit striving to heal, mend and comfort sufferers after tragedy, often led to a mistaken belief that since believers can spiritually grow from suffering and pain, then God must send suffering to perfect human beings.¹⁹ The healing that takes place with God's help after the fact of illness and tragedy was interpreted as a sign of God's intentions before the fact. God's providential plan and will was thought to include every detail that happened in the universe; thus persons should either be resigned to the illness that God sends or welcome the suffering as a sign of God's favor. Such a pessimistic glorification of suffering needs correcting and the positive emphasis of alternative medicine upon healing and wellness can help the process.

New optimistic theological reflections appearing affirm that God created the universe as free, open and engaged in dynamic processes of evolution.²⁰ A free and open universe is governed both by natural laws but also includes chance and indeterminacy. God sustains and infuses the universe but has embraced a self-limitation of power for the sake of human freedom.²¹ God's actions and influences in the world are totally beneficent but they can operate only if the freedom of created human beings is not violated. God can also work through chance and within the consciousness (or spirits) of human co-creators redeeming and healing the world. Human beings in their freedom can be viewed as co-creators and healers of self, others and the rest of creation.

Illness and suffering need never be viewed as directly sent by God for our own good. Illness can be seen as the result of chance and evolving processes in an independent, incomplete universe. But since the universe is open to change and growth, there always exist possibilities for positive transformations. Hope for healing is appropriate, and human co-creative work in the world can be effective, views that have undergirded the development of conventional technological medicine. Self-healing alternative practices simply extend the human response to the divine call for human co-creation. God's healing powers can be invoked through prayer, action, and consciousness disciplines as well as through science-based medicine.

When prayer does not work cure at the physical level, Christians can attribute this to the fact that evil exists, and that illness and death have accrued real power in our free but incomplete universe. Christians affirm that in some way human nature resists Divine influence; this results from living in a fallen or wounded world. Powerful physical and social evils springing from chance, incomplete development and evil human choices actually exist and plague humankind. They will continue to exist until the Kingdom comes and every tear is wiped away. Thus in this interim time, God's self-limitation is real and God's loving goodness does not omnipotently direct every outcome of every event in the creation. In the same way the human mind and spirit cannot completely control the embodied dimensions of the self or possess the power to overcome illness and death. We remain in all too many ways "at the will of the body."²² Only the sting of death can be conquered, promised by those who love God and exist as embodied beings.

As conventional medicine must give up its dualistic view of human existence, so must Christians give up the vestiges of soul-body dualisms. But what will take the place of a worldview in which spirit and mind constitute separate realities? Philosophically we can safely assume the fall of Descartes, but the existence of embodied human consciousness remains an unexplained mystery. Alternative medicine provides one refutation of a reductionistic belief in the world as "nothing but matter." On the other hand those believers who affirm that only mind and spirit exist seem equally misguided. Perhaps the future lies with what has been called "nonreductive physicalism," or "dual-aspect monism."²³ Nonreductive physicalism grants that persons are their bodies, not souls and minds that inhabit bodies, because the mind/self depends upon an embodied brain. At the same time something more, some emergent property of self-consciousness gives human beings their spiritual identity. Dual-aspect monism claims that while reality is unified, it employs either a spiritual-mental or material-physical perspective-one reality, two different lenses. At any rate, the contemporary resurgence of holistic mind-body medicine ensures that believers, philosophers and scientists will continue to struggle with the perennial problem of our embodied human consciousness.

Christian theologians, for their part, will continue the growing dialogue between religion, science, and medicine, a dialogue that will be engaged by believers who worship God as Truth and affirm that the creation is one central way God reveals GodSelf to humankind.²⁴ Christians find God revealed in scripture, tradition, reason and our experience in and of the world. Using these sources of authority, Roman Catholic Christians develop and grow in their secular and religious commitments as reason is informed by faith. Vatican II ushered in a newly vigorous dialogue with science, the humanities and other religions.

INCOMPATILITIES AND RESERVATIONS

Are there then any conflicts between the stripped-down, synthetic, secular spirituality of alternative medicine and a mainstream Christian religion such as Roman Catholicism? Yes, certainly. Some of the core beliefs underlying some forms of alternative medicine make claims and assertions that are not compatible with Christian beliefs. (It should be noted however, that many of the spiritual healing movement's unacceptable elements are found in its published popularizers and may not be representative of the everyday pragmatic activity of most alternative practitioners). As one would expect, often the spiritual beliefs that clash with Christianity are imported from non-Christian Eastern religions and mixed together with ancient gnostic spiritual traditions, transmitted by way of Jungian transpersonal psychology and/or nineteenth century theosophy and spiritualism. A claim, for example, that an individual's eternal spirit soul pre-exists this life and progresses through many reincarnations conflict with the orthodox Christian doctrine of creation and redemption. Thus Christians would reject the belief that in an illness a person could be in need of past life therapy. In fact, Christians would find unacceptable any implications in alternative spiritualities that individuals choose their illnesses or are living out their karma.

Two or three examples of the claims appearing in bestsellers give the general picture. Louise Hay is a popular California healer who asserts that "We create every so-called illness in our body."²⁵ But many of these negative processes are due to the soul's past choices in its endless journey through eternity. A certain omnipotence of the mind and spirit is affirmed when she says,

In such a spiritual system every illness and misfortune is caused by past actions; even the presence of AIDS reflects some cosmic reason.

Another more intellectual and even more popular exponent of alternative medicine's spirituality is Deepak Chopra, a physician trained in both Western and ancient Hindu Ayurveda medicine. He also believes in a timeless, eternal spiritual reality which means that many so-called objective material realities are merely the result of illusory beliefs. Diseases are mostly the results of individual errors of consciousness. Thus,

In later works Chopra explains that the body is not a frozen sculpture but a river of eternally recycling energies; the body is ageless and the mind is timeless. By an intentional training of consciousness one can use the power of awareness to reverse entropy, undo aging and above all overcome the debilitating fear of death.²⁸

In this kind of spirituality, individuals and their choices reign supreme; the good news is that individuals have the spiritual power to change and heal their bodies by changing their awareness, their beliefs, and the way they live and deploy attention. Unfortunately, the positive hope that this spiritual approach to healing engenders is often bought at the price of attributing people's illnesses to their unenlightened state of consciousness. To see illness as caused by individual choices seems as wrong as the idea that God chooses to send human beings pain and suffering for their own good.

Christians must remember that when Christ healed a man born blind he made the point that the man's blindness was not caused by sin, neither on his part or on the part of his parents. The man's blindness was no one's fault but was able to serve as an opportunity for God to demonstrate His healing power. In all of Christ's healing, we never find Christ blaming the ill for their diseases but only offering acceptance and remedy.

Yet even some Christian exponents of spiritual healing remain ambivalent on whether sin can cause an illness. John Sanford, a noted writer on Christian spiritual healing, interpret (or in my opinion misinterprets) the Gospel story of Christ healing the thirty-eight year illness of the man lying by the Bethsaida pool. Sanford claims the man's illness was a self-inflicted, egocentric clinging to infirmity.²⁹ While he generally denies that every illness arises from sin, Sanford also asserts that "some people prefer illness to health because they don't want to pay the price of health."³⁰

This judgment is similar to accusations that those who seek spiritual healing do not receive it because their faith is not strong enough. These arguments falsely exaggerate the power of individual spiritual autonomy. Christian healers, along with other alternative medicine practitioners, do well to encourage people to take responsibility for much of their health, but it seems incorrect, if not immoral, to hold people responsible for having become ill or for not being able to heal themselves. To see illness as the result merely of error, sin or wrong thinking denies the independent power of the material world that is not only ordered but also filled with chance, chaos and intractable, destructive forces.

The key incompatibility of Christianity and many of the new spiritualities centers on their different views of material reality and the status of creation. For Christians the healing powers of the Holy Spirit are always at work, but because creation is free and separate from God, evil can exist. Sin, illness, death, and suffering are real and not illusory. Embodied selves are also created by God as real, eternal, unique, beings; human individuals will not be absorbed into the eternal recycling of universal spiritual forces. Human beings are destined for an eternal, transformed life in God, but they are not divine. Beliefs that deny the existence of matter, evil, or the body easily lead to denying the validity of conventional medical interventions. When such denial leads to rejecting conventional treatment for ill children, it can be criminal.

Believers in the Christian God will be forced to reject all spiritual systems with claims that reality is Divine Consciousness. Nor can individuals create their own reality through their subjective consciousness. When this train of thought becomes widely accepted and simplified you end up with true believers like Shirley MacLaine, who can say:

Exalting the self and subjective consciousness results in a pantheism that sees God as a name for a transcendent spiritual force rather than as a Divinely transcendent personal Creator. In a typical expression of this idea, the psychiatrist Thomas Hora says:

When God is only a spiritual force, the important thing is to be "in harmony with what is." It then follows that, "Since God is infinite consciousness, enlightenment means conscious union with Cosmic Consciousness, or at-one-ment with Love-Intelligence."³³ Behavior and actions are secondary, if not beside the point.

In this extreme belief in an individual's spiritual creation of reality that one ends up with moral relativism and a denial of objective truths that can be known by science and human reason. Traditional Christians, along with most scientists, cannot accept the collapse of all reality into subjective consciousness. One can grant the power of human consciousness but affirm the existence of a real world out there beyond one's own perceptions and projections. I advocate "critical realism," which affirms that human beings can by reasoned inquiry gradually approximate more adequate knowledge of the universe.³⁴ As a traditional believer I also affirm that God is not an impersonal force or cause but an ineffable, perfect, personal being that transcends all other realities.

Finally, Christians will believe that the worship of God can transcend the need for health, happiness, and joy, as good as these gifts of God are. Worship of the God revealed in Christianity demands justice, charity, and moral actions that may require sacrifice of other goods. Taking up a cross out of love for others in order to relieve their suffering may not lead to good health or long life. In other words, Christian spirituality must include an allegiance to altruistic communal values that are not limited to an individual's private spirituality and well-being. Privately following your bliss and enjoying good health will not suffice to fulfill a Christian's commitment to charity and justice.

ACCOMMODATION IN PRACTICE
What pragmatic responses should Christians make to the challenge of the stripped-down, secular spirituality and practice of alternative medicine? Since Christians believe that a God who endows His creation with Freedom certainly desires freedom of conscience and religion for all persons, they will on principle uphold a stance of openness and tolerance toward alternative medicine and its beliefs. And this openness will be supported by the reliable Scriptural criteria for practical judgments that "by their fruits you shall know them." Already, we can see benefits arising from the way holistic medicine has encouraged a return to spirituality in secular culture and the revival of spiritual healing ministries. This turn to spirituality has been a corrective for a secularized world.

In addition, alternative medicine often works and relieves the suffering of many. Americans patronize both alternative and conventional medicine because they receive benefits from both. Even if Christians do not accept the core beliefs or worldview of some practitioners, they should feel free to use alternative healthcare practices as long as they are not harmful or illegal. Certainly the underlying secular materialistic beliefs of much modern medicine and its clinicians do not deter Christian believers from making use of science-based medicine.

However, as with conventional medicine, there may be some limits to openness. Any practices in any kind of medicine which seem only to be serving the practitioners' purse, or power, or ego-driven desires to gain fame or followers, should be suspect.

Another danger can also come from adhering to an alternative approach that dogmatically refuses to countenance conventional medical treatment. Most alternate medical practitioners recognize that for certain kinds of medical problems conventional medicine is necessary. Yes, people are victims of modern medicine and die from drugs and surgery, but people can also die from refusing conventional interventions.

Another limitation to openness could arise if some alternative practices actively and explicitly conflict with Christianity's faith commitments. Many Christians find immoral conventional medical certain practices such as abortion, euthanasia and certain fertility treatment. In alternative medicine some healing practices might also have to be avoided. Some healing practice might also be so integral to another religion's worship service that a Christian could not participate in good faith. Would a Christian approve of an unbeliever who took communion at Mass because of a notion that it might heal? Modern Westerners have not scrupled to co-opt and take up Eastern and indigenous religious practices, but respect for the integrity of another religious community's worship should be shown.

In order to make adequate moral and religious judgments about alternative medicine, more guidance should be made available to Christian believers. Traditional Christian theologians, scholars, teaching authorities, and healers should learn more about alternative health care and its spiritualities. The churches could then provide leadership by welcoming what is compatible with Christianity and pointing out which beliefs or practices they judge suspect or incompatible with the faith.

Reservations about the practical use of alternative medicine by Christians would be rare, for the most part. Pragmatic openness is appropriate upon principle but also because the stripped-down spiritualities underlying alternative medicine are themselves open, flexible, eclectic, and pragmatic. Holistic medicine's focus on individual choice works against imposing any authoritative approach as the one and only path. Alternative medicine judges by the fruits of practice, so its practitioners and clients tend to endorse whatever works in a particular case.

In an open, pluralistic society that values freedom of conscience and free inquiry, primary values will exist that include tolerance and progress, self-correction and progressive revision. Western science prides itself on its rational, self-correcting capacities. The scientific goal is to creatively generate ideas, test them rigorously by methods of critical doubt, and never fool oneself. By these methods, science moves from less adequate to more adequate understanding of the universe. Conventional science-based medicine must therefore in principle endorse change and progress. In a different way Christianity too seeks to evolve better and better understandings of God's truth, engaging in "the endlessness of making sense" of the good news, as theologian Nicholas Lash phrases it.³⁵ Over the centuries Christians have developed, elaborated, refined and furthered their understanding of God and nature. Surely too Western society's pragmatic practitioners of alternative medicine will find themselves joining in the process of testing, self-correction, and change. Both conventional medicine and alternative medicine will continue to develop as they converge into an expanded and truly integrated medicine.

Traditional religious believers need not worry that the growing popularity of new spiritualities and spiritual healing will mean the end of mainstream Christianity. As popular as they are, new spiritualities will not replace traditional religions. For one thing, life presents more problems and concerns than individual health and illness. Death is unlikely to disappear, nor vulnerability to old age and disease conquered. As evolutionary medicine pessimistically assures us, new diseases continually emerge because microbes and viruses constantly evolve new ways of evading medical treatments.³⁶ Their selective processes race against the growth of human ingenuity.

The continuing presence of disease, vulnerability and death ensure that the great eternal religious questions about the existence of God and evil will remain. And from those who worship the God revealed in the Bible, the call will still go out to come and join the struggle for other goods besides health. Social structural injustices, or social sin, require corporate and institutional measures to combat them. Persons will still respond to the Christian challenge to love one's neighbor as oneself. Followers of Christ then must work for all kinds of human flourishing, such as peacemaking, education, art, politics, science, ethics, economics, and humanistic inquiry. Certainly, human beings need to be spiritually and physically healed, but they also need to live in just communities in an economically and ecologically balanced world.

To fulfill all these strivings for personal and social transformation, individuals will continue to turn to religious communities that provide developed theologies of social justice, public corporate spiritualities, and communal support for change. As the Benedictine monk Sebastian Moore once commented, the Roman Catholic Church is the only worldwide and world-old institution dedicated to changing the world. Traditional Christianity holds its own because it continues to meet the criteria William James sets out for a valid religion. It provides cognitive meaning to the world, is morally helpful to its adherents, and provides immediately luminous experiences.³⁷ Stripped-down spiritualities that individuals choose to construct to achieve private healing, harmony and well-being too easily avoid the larger religious imperatives and struggles. While traditional Christians may welcome the growth of spiritual healing they should still affirm that rational beings need developed theological grounding, moral reflection, and institutionally organized, stable communities of worship. Institutions and structures provide the doctrinal backbone and social continuity that encourage mature individual spiritualities that persist from one generation to another.

NOTES
1. Ted J. Kaptchuk, OMD and David M. Eisenberg, "The Persuasive Appeal of Alternative Medicine," Annals of Internal Medicine, 129, no. 12, (1998); Michael S. Goldstein, "Medicine and the Spirit," Alternative Health Care: Medicine, Miracle, or Mirage, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999)74-109.