Disturbing News from Australia

Thanks to Séamus from Australia for pointing this one out to me-- a new hospital in Australia will be built with a specifically Muslim prayer room, but only a "multi-faith" room for all the other religions.

The details are confused, especially since there has been some pretty frenetic "spin" going on, but that seems the essence of the matter.

Even worse (but not surprisingly), the hospital's Christian chaplains have connived with this.

First of all, I'm not at all opposed to the idea of a special Muslim prayer room. But certainly, there should be a Christian chapel as well, in that case.

Would it really be too much to have dedicated places of worship for all the major faiths?

Stories like this confront us with the question; should Christians be culture warriors?

I've vacillated on that matter, in the past. At one point, I worried that culture wars drag Christians into politics and tribalism, and risk co-opting Christianity into battles that are essentially not about religion, but rather about cultural identity. It also seemed to me that anger and indignation can be addictive.

However, I've changed my mind. There's a risk of overthinking such matters. I've come to believe; YES, Christians should be culture warriors. We should get upset about people saying "Happy Holidays". We should fight for our place in the public square. Sometimes, indeed often, anger and indignation is justified.

Ask yourself about the kind of Christians who refuse to get upset about the war on Christmas (for instance), or who see it as beneath them; are they consistently that calm about matters of symbolism, or nomenclature? Do they, for instance, get het up about the imagery used in advertising? Are they being selective about their high-mindedness? And what does this say about their priorities?

I know the answers already.