Sunday, September 9, 2007

Holy Crescent Hospital?


On Thursday's edition of WOTM radio, Todd made a well-timed, off-the-cuff quip about a hospital that was referenced in a recent news report saying, "Would that have been Holy Crescent Hospital?" Station engineer and comedic straight-man, Tony Verkinnes, replied with a well-timed, "No... that would be... Holy Cross Hospital." This from a duo that claims the worldwide variance of religion to be compelling evidence for the validity of the Christian faith and the bible from which it is founded.

I recently brought up this very point on a call to the show; I asked how Christians can suppose that everyone holds to the same beliefs as them when the social, geographic and demographic factors of religion are taken into consideration. How can Todd confidently tell a Muslim, Krishna or Hindu that he is absolutely right in his beliefs and they are unequivocally wrong? Doesn't he realize that his introduction to Christianity came in much the same way introduced to the English language?

Knowing that there are more than 30,000 Christ-centered religions worldwide and that we are living in the U.S. ("one nation under God"), doesn't it follow that the vast majority of our health care institutions are affiliated in some way with protestantism or Catholicism (depending on the ebb and flow of the social tide, Catholics may or may not be considered Christians)? I would no more expect to find a Muslim-run hospital in my area than I would a hospital with the marquis written in Sanskrit.

If Todd were visiting Dubai City or Kolkata, would he really expect to find a hospital chapel with a crucifix or a statuette of the virgin Mary? The answer is obvious, religions are vast and wide-ranging but they all share one common factor: The adherents of these faiths have created their own culturally and socially relevant god(s) to worship. Todd is no different.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Thats a fair argument. However, let look at the countries you named. In almost all those countries, the governments control, run, and own, the hospital because its socialized medicine. Even Iraq had socialized medicine under Sadam- wasnt' very good given they could kill you if you were a Kurd, but they had it. In the states that never existed so it makes since that the private sector would pick up the lead there. And because the States were founded by people who at the very least had Christian presuposistions the hospitals were Christian of some sort. And Catholicism, while not biblical, may be put in with the term "Christian". The reason for this is because as an evangelical to engage in intellectually honest conversation I must make a dinctinction between Christendom (all faith who claim to follow Jesus) and His true elect church which follows the essential teaches of scripture need to call themselves Christians (and there is diversity in it). But to sum it up I would argue economics are a much better reason to explain this than religion.