Holistic health has steadily gained public acceptance. What exactly is it all about, and are there any reasons why Christians should steer clear from it?

The holistic health movement encompasses a diverse range of alternative approaches to health care. Advocates of the movement view it as an antidote to the inadequacies of traditional medicine, which is accused of overemphasizing the physical aspects of health and healing while neglecting its psychological and spiritual dimensions.

Holistic health proponents pride their efforts in going beyond modern medicine's "cure" and "prevention" mentality. They seek, instead, to focus their energy on such lofty goals as personal fulfillment and self-actualization. But while these aims characterize holistic health's strongest appeal, they also testify to the movement's basic problem - namely, its subjective underpinnings. After all, is there an objective way to define and administer such a thing as fulfillment?

To make matters worse, nearly all practitioners in this field are entrenched in an occultic and mystical conception of reality, to the exclusion of the Christian world view. Thus, a number of practices - for example, psychic healing - can be found steeped in outright occultism. It's no wonder why this movement has gained such avid support from the New Age community.

Admittedly, some holistic health practices - biofeedback and chiropractic, to name two - offer a measure of therapeutic value. However, other applications, like iridology, are nothing more than sheer quackery. Because of these and other related problems, we strongly advice Christians not to go to holistic healers, even in such widely-accepted and innocuous practices as chiropractic, without first inquiring about the healer's personal beliefs and practices. It could prove to be the opening for the world of the occult. Above all, as Christians we must test all things by God's Word which, as Proverbs 4:22 tells us, "are life to those who find them and health to a man's whole body."