Triumph of the Cross & Chiropractic Theory

Today Catholics celebrate the feast of the Triumph of the Cross. It may seem odd that chiropracters have any light to shed on the theological meaning behind this feast, but here's what I heard from some chiropracters who were presenting/defending their art to my class today.

The old biomechanical model which forms the basis for the medical and chiropractic treatment of musculoskeletal disorders assumes that degenerative changes (e.g. to a joint) occur first, leading to structural changes with normal loading, which gives rise to pain.

Based on new research data, the new biomechanical model conceptualizes joint damage and its sequelae in the reverse order: structural damage occurs first (with improper loading, etc.), followed by inflammation and degenerative change, which leads to pain. What is very interesting here is the implication that by avoiding structural change (e.g. to your vertebrae, by poor posture, bad lifting, etc.) one can avoid degenerative change (osteoarthritis, lower back pain, osteoporosis, etc.). Since mechanisms for inducing structural change (e.g. habitual poor posture) proceed directly from the human will, it follows that the perfectly informed will would not make the bad choices that would ultimately induce (at least) degenerative types of disease. After all, degenerative change is only the response of the properly functioning bodily systems to damage from without.

But man before the fall possessed a preternatural will, capable of making the right choices and thereby avoiding bone and tissue degeneration. Which means that when sin entered the world, clouding man's will, so did the pain of degenerative disease. Lower back pain complaints account for the most visits to primary care physicians after respiratory disorders.

But today we celebrate the triumph of the cross, the cross by which Our Lord took upon his perfect body all the pain and agony of death, damage, degeneration and dispair. And by His stripes we are healed. Death no longer has a hold on us.