How many opinions do we need?

My sister's husband is facing a serious health crisis. But before they do anything, they are seeking a second opinion. In fact, they are at MD Anderson in Houston, Texas, as this is written.

I'm all in favor of second opinions. So much so that when my obstetrician determined that I needed an emergency Caesarean section in order to safely deliver my daughter, Lisa, I timidly proposed seeking a second opinion. It was a knee-jerk reaction, I admit. After all, it was midnight, I had already gotten my OB out of bed, and the surgical team was assembling. Apparently, I don't recognize a crisis even when it's right under my nose. My sister-in-law, Rosie, who had taken me to the hospital that night, was the voice of reason (very important since Danny was working on a mountainside west of Vail and was therefore unavailable for consult, even by telephone). She gently said, "Umm, Dawn, that may work in any other case, but there really isn't time for a second opinion this time." She immediately notified the state patrol, who dispatched a sheriff's deputy to Danny's work camp, and though he raced down the mountainside, he missed the delivery by at least an hour and a half. Good thing we didn't wait for that second opinion, we didn't even have time to wait for daddy.

Certainly there are times when a second opinion is prudent, and manageable. Perhaps a critical test has been overlooked. Perhaps the lab erred. Perhaps the body, a marvel of engineering regardless of your evolutionary leanings, has healed itself. And I will never discount the possibility that the Lord God, who designed and understands the human body more fully than any of his creation ever could, can and has provided a miraculous cure for far too many to name.

Second opinions are usually sufficient to uncover any of these possibilities and a myriad more. Most people stop at a second opinion, and then get down to the business of developing an appropriate response.

Some don't. Some, not content with the first opinion, nor the second, seek perhaps a third or even a fourth, determined to find an answer they can live with.

A lot of people do the same thing with religion. A co-worker recently remarked that he knew of a woman who church-hopped, all within a well-known denomination, more than 30 times during his childhood. She is but one example of many, although the argument can be made that she didn't really seek a second opinion on religion as much as she sought a more comfortable fit within Christianity. For generations, Christianity was inarguably the default faith of the nation. According to a Barna report issued in January 2009, that is no longer the case.

And so today, we have a kaleidoscope of religions to investigate. Some are well-known world religions, others are relative newcomers. I must admit that I am impressed with the quality of the commercial advertisements I've recently seen touting the tenets of Scientology. Its popularity among the rich and famous also seems to lend it credence, in spite of the fact that the tenets were created by L. Ron Hubbard in 1952, a follow-up to his self-help system "Dianetics." My husband, Danny, never forgets that L. Ron Hubbard, a native of Tilden, Nebraska, was first a science fiction writer. He is of the opinion that, in fact, that is all Hubbard ever was.

Still, Scientology qualifies as a "second opinion" in religious circles, especially among the religions that put the onus of salvation on the one needing to be saved.

In Scientology people learn that they are immortal spiritual beings who have forgotten their true nature. To regain that nature they attempt to re-experience painful or traumatic events in their past in order to free themselves of the resulting limiting effects of the pain or trauma. Additionally, there are elements of Eastern religions evident in Scientology, including the concepts of karma and Gnosticism.

This combination of faiths is certainly not unique to Scientology. Many religions have developed through an a la carte selection of desirable tenets from one faith or another and today, the same can be said of some segments of Christianity. The result of all of this a la carte shopping looks a lot like the food trays that slid past me during my brief employment at Furr's Cafeteria in 1971. People in line would ask for a little of this, a little of that, "don't be shy with the collard greens," one would say, while another would stand in front of the Baron of Roast Beef, accepting slice after slice until nothing else could be seen on his plate. It was a wonder we didn't sell Pepto-Bismol by the gallon at the cashier's stand.

With all of these selections, all of these opinions, all of these voices in the crowd of humanity shouting, "Here is the answer!" "No, we have the answer here!" it is small wonder so many have taken the Swiss view of neutrality, at least in regard to religion. "If that's what works for you," is a common expression of those in the Swiss camp.

On the night of Lisa's birth, only one opinion mattered. The obstetrician had years of experience to back him up and he knew that if we waited too long and my water broke, it was possible that Lisa would be strangled by the umbilical cord as it moved with the rush of waters. That was all I really needed to know. Her life would be over before it had hardly begun if I tarried, shopping for a more palatable answer.

Of all of the myriad options of religiosity out there, only one has the answers to the questions man rightly asks. What is justice and where do we find it? What is love and how can we know it? What is mercy and can we obtain it? Why are we here and what does it matter? As the world continues its dizzying descent into wickedness, who can hold out his hand and say "enough" and set things right again? Only one recognizes that we are all sinners -- broken shards of pottery, our original condition barely recognizable after millennia of devolution from what was once "Good." Only One has the solution to sin, only One provides justice, wedding it with love and mercy on a cruel cross.

There will come a time for every man, when only one thing will matter. Proverbs 4 tells us to "Get wisdom, get understanding." And that is a good and proper goal. But there is one question on which each man's eternity will hinge. So as we pursue wisdom, as we pursue knowledge, as we investigate one opinion and then another, be certain and sure you have settled your answer to Christ's question:

"But who do you say that I am?" Mark 8:29 (NIV)