Comment on Conrad Vine Continues to Attack Church Leadership by Nathan Jensen.
Thank you for your thoughtful response. I did get COVID-19 and lost my taste and smell for a while, but stayed isolated in hopes of protecting others and respecting Weimar University’s request that I do so.
Good to know you also see a drift from the ideal. As a medical practitioner, you have a perspective I will likely never have. It appears neither of us have a clear pathway on how to get back to the ideal (AKA reformation), so for the time being I lean toward the idea that has yet to take root: start a new medical branch that meets the standards set by God. Perhaps this idea will never take root until the lifestyle medicine and “sanitarium” practitioners come up with a business model that can be sustainable in the face of health insurance and the commercialized medical industry.
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Nathan Jensen Also Commented
Conrad Vine Continues to Attack Church Leadership
Dr. Pitman,
I have two sets of questions. (4) questions total.
Firstly:
(1) What would you say to someone like myself, who, as a 21 year old during the pandemic was rather uncertain about getting a vaccine myself and opted not to receive the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines at that time? (2) How would you respond to my decision to also refuse to condemn anyone who chose to get the vaccine, especially those in the at-risk category? You don’t need to respond to question 2; I know your answer. 🙂
This is what I did, and I think I was pretty balanced in my approach. Some may think I was “sitting on the fence,” because at times I was pretty “anti-vax” but never fully-so. However, now I’m reflecting and evaluating again because my responsibilities as an active layperson in a rather opinionated conservative church (I love my local church) force me to be educated on these topics even though I loathe the hours demanded by these complex and distracting debates. Ugh.
Secondly:
I’m of the conviction that, like you teach, we ought to have the best of modern medicine as well as the best of natural remedies. There is a section of Vine’s argument which I feel was never fully addressed by anyone, but it intrigued me. He argued that Advent Health and other such healthcare institutions create a financial conflict of interest within the church due to the massive amount of money these institutions process annually, especially when compared with the NAD tithe base. His argument wasn’t watertight unfortunately, because he neglected to address the fact that–if I’m not mistaken–the majority of employees hired by our “Adventist” health institutions are not even Seventh-Day Adventist.
Now, I’m not striking at you or any other dedicated health professionals trying to save lives by what I’m about to say. I’m genuinely seeking answers that I don’t have, that’s all. (3) What do we do about the fact that so many of “our” (SDA) health institutions are worldly and commercial with regards to much of their day-to-day operations? I’m not talking about emergency medicine here, I’m talking about the day-to-day healthcare where drugs are being used instead of directing people to God’s principles of health and the natural remedies He’s created for us. Our brother, Conrad Vine, is about to speak at d’Sozo camp, and I’m well aware of Dave Fiedler’s arguments about the AMA etc…
Fiedler never condemned modern medicine in his book, but he firmly places the question in the court of the reader. I’ll place the same question before you that has perplexed me for three years now: (4) what do we do since we’re stuck in a medical paradigm that, in the majority of cases, “missionary” is completely removed from “medical missionary”?
Thank you for your comparatively balanced and methodically composed resources Dr. Pitman. Look forward to hearing from you.