A system is greater than any individual who helped develop and is part of that system.The individual must subject himself or herself to that system and abide by its principles in order to make it valuable to them and to those they influence. The system must be acceptable by their method of perception, faith, rationalism or empiricism whichever is prevalent in their world and life viewpoint. If it is not acceptable to/consistent with their world and life viewpoint, it will not be considered valuable and worthwhile and not likely to ever outlive them. Chiropractic and its 33 principles as a system must be accepted as a system and they are, some by faith, some by reason , and some by empiricism. Whichever method is your P.M.P. (primary method of perception), the dominant one in your life. There must be a primary authority in the system. For the Protestant Christian, it is the Bible, Sola Scriptura. For the Christian Catholics it is the Bible and the words of the Pope. For a Muslim it is the Koran and the writings of the prophet Mohammed (if there are other writings beside the Koran). For the American citizen, it is the Constitution of the U.S. If you are an American Christian chiropractor, you (should) follow 3 systems! The problem occurs if and when there are disagreements between the systems, example; when a Christian, Muslim , or Jew has disagreement between their theological system and the government system. That should not happen and apparently has not since the creation of the U.S. Constitution that reflects a respect and acknowledgement of religious views. One of the problems we have in chiropractic is the inability to separate the system from the man who largely gave us the system. There are things that BJ gave us that are inconsistent with the system (like chiropractic gets sick people well) just as there are things that the Founding Fathers of our country maintained that are inconsistent with the system that they created. It took us over 87 years, the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans and a crippling war to get rid of that inconsistency in the system. I fear we are going through the same situation within our profession. I am not sure the chiropractic profession is strong enough to withstand that type of civil war.
