Post-Hippocratic Medicine: The Problem And The Solution—How The Christian Ethic Has Influenced Health Care

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Quotations

The logic of an idea, once it has gained a foothold in the human psyche, has a tendency to work itself out with a relentless consistency to its ultimate con-clusions even among men of disparate cultures who have little or no contact with or knowledge of each other, but more especially so where that idea is widely accepted by a community—unless it is effectively challen-ged. And so it has been with sacerdotalism and prelacy, which even the Reformation was not able to expunge entirely from the minds of Christian men, and so the wretched harvest produced by these ideas began to grow once more before the dust thrown up by the ploughing of the Reformation had settled on the ground. And this is all the more remarkable because, as Max Weber pointed out, “every consistent doctrine of predestined grace inevitably implied a radical and ultimate devaluation of all magical, sacramental and institutional distributions of grace, in view of God’s sovereign will.”

— Stephen Perks,
The Christian Passover:
Agape Feast or Ritual Abuse?, p. 46

The Officials of the Roman Empire in time of persecution sought to force the Christians to sacrifice, not to any of the heathen gods, but to the Genius of the Emperor and the Fortune of the city of Rome; and at all times the Christians' refusal was looked upon not as a religious but as a political offence.

— Frances Legge,
Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity,
Vol, I, p. lvi.

The history of Eastern Christianity under the rule of Islam has already been written. The story is a depressing one. The history of Western Christianity under the rule of Islam has yet to be written. Whether it will ever be written may well depend on how seriously the Church in the West takes the Great Commission in the next few decades and on whether the zeal and self-sacrifice of Muslims for their jihad can be matched by the zeal and self-sacrifice of Christians for the Great Commission - indeed, whether Muslims, with their zeal and self-sacrifice, can be converted from jihad to the Great Commission.

— Stephen Perks,
"From Jihad to Great Commission"
in Christianity & Society, Vol. VIX, No. 3

Thursday

Jul282011

ISBN: 978-0-9522058-9-0

The “Golden Age of Medicine” was built upon the foundation of the Judeo-Christian ethic and the Hippocratic tradition. It flourished because of this foundation. Whenever and wherever this foundation has been abandoned, medicine has given way to barbarism and superstition. The modern age is no different. You can read all about babies being treated like a crop of potatoes in the new science of fetal harvesting; you can read all about women serving as breeders in surrogate motherhood programmes; you can read all about the “new growth industry” of genetic manipulation in test tube baby experiments; you can read all about how the poor serve as guinea pigs in bizarre particle bombardments; or read about handicapped patients facing compulsory sterilisation; or the latest in genetic engineering; or—probably the most frightening of all—the revival of the racially motivated eugenic programmes; and finally, how two Wall Street Journal reporters revealed a tale of deceit and manipulation by the government, the media, and the Centre for Disease Control in order to gain political support for the billions being spent on AIDS research and prevention. The “Golden Age of Medicine” may be coming to an end. The medical profession is gradually abandoning its Hippocratic tradition and its Judeo-Christian ethical foundation. It is vital that this foundation should be restored.

Author: Hugh Flemming

Paperback | 45 pages | £3.95 plus postage | ISBN: 978-0-9522058-9-0

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