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Why religion shuns traditional medicine?

At the age of 23, Peter Mhango [not his real name] suffered severe headache and lots of bad dreams. For close to a year, he was bedridden until his parents took him to a herbalist where he got healed within a day.
Though most family members were staunch Christians, they chose to go against church teachings after they had tried various hospitals, but to no avail.
herbs
They took Peter to a distant traditional healer for fear of being excommunicated from the church. Fortunately, no razor marks were etched on Peter’s body, but he was given a concoction that healed his sickness.
“Traditional medicine saved my life and I do not think it is wrong to use such medicine to cure sickness because I could have died years ago,” explains Peter, a faithful of one of the mainstream churches.
“I only condemn herbalists when it comes to wicked issues such as witchcraft and magic,” said Peter who comes from Kuyu Village in Traditional Authority (T/A) Mkumba in Likoma Island.
Now, he works at one of the lakeshore resorts in Nkhata Bay.
Peter’s story just reveals how religion betrays its followers when trapped between life and death. It also shows that sometimes necessity knows no law, even mosaic laws.
However 26-year-old Jane Mbeye of Mgubani Mbeye Village, Traditional Authority (T/A) M’mbelwa in Mzimba says herbalists just work on assumptions and people just waste their time and money seeking help from them.
“My brother got sick in 2010 back home in Mzimba and he was taken to a traditional healer within our area. Several concoctions were administered until the herbalists gave up. Later on, we decided to take him to the hospital where he died the following day before he started receiving treatment,” explained Mbeye.
She adds that her neighbour in Mzuzu fell sick too and instead of being taken to hospital, she was taken to a herbalist where she died within days.
In the Bible, Hezekiah devoted his life to God, but when he fell sick, Prophet Isaiah was sent to tell him to put his house in order because he was going to die—he would not recover. Looking at the way he had lived, doing God’s will, Hezekiah wept bitterly.
Again, God told Isaiah to tell the king to apply a poultice of fig tree to boils he was suffering from and they healed instantly. God further assured him (King) of another 15 years to his life (Isaiah 38:1-21).
Some religions condemn using traditional herbs by its members as unholy and if found they are excommunicated. Though religions stick to their doctrine, some believers continue using herbs and consulting herbalists secretly.
Hezekiah got healed by using herbs through God’s intervention, so why do religions deny their faithful access to traditional medicine?
Pastor Joster Kauwa, who heads Voice of Preachers Pentecostal Church at Chirimba in Blantyre, says although trees and shrubs are part of God’s creation, his church does not allow its believers to use traditional medicine.
The pastor cited Deuteronomy 18:9-13, which says: “When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you; do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or the spiritist or who consults the dead.
“We strictly advise our believers to go to hospital when they fall sick because God strongly condemns other means. Hospitals are manned by people of great expertise; they use sophisticated gadgets such as screening devices to detect illness and well calibrated medication in line with a person’s illness unlike herbalists who often guess what could be cause of illness. They bring confusion and create enemity between family members in communities yet one of God’s commandments is love one another,” stresses Kauwa.
He also hints that although hospitals sometimes put patients on palliative care either at home or within the hospital, people should not lose hope and faith in God.
A female herbalist based in Limbe says although she is a staunch believer and goes to church every Sunday she plies her trade on the belief that creation is there to assist mankind in the right.
Some of her well known herbs are aphrodisiacs. She moves around with a sack full of medicines and containers of concoctions.

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