Unclear on the Concept ...

... a little venting: don't mind me ...

I heard a theological postulate today that absolutely made me cringe. A friend of mine related a teaching she'd heard from a theologian who’s also something of an activist on the Downtown East Side. He re-told the parable of The Good Samaritan as “The Good Drug Dealer”. The idea, apparently, was to illustrate the extent to which Samaritans were reviled in Jesus’ time.

Nice try, but …

I have written in the past that the Downtown East Side is Vancouver’s Samaria, but this is not what I mean. The warping of this parable may give us an idea of the antipathy towards Samaritans, but I think this theologian owes the Samaritans an apology for comparing them to drug dealers. After all, Samaritans did not choose to be Samaritans, but no matter how you slice it, drug dealers are in that occupation by choice. Their sole purpose is to make money for themselves, and they have little concern for the people whose lives are ruined or cut short because of that “purpose”.

The flip side of this polemic is even more chilling: that’s the idea that we should consider drug dealers to be like Samaritans – downtrodden and discriminated against by virtue of their place in society. It sounds like the prelude to a clever civil liberties lawyer's argument for a mistrial on the basis of chronic harassment.

Now, if this theologian had used the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1-10 instead, that would have been an interesting parallel. Zacchaeus was a tax collector, and in those days, tax collectors were reviled for ripping off people, handing over money to the Romans and raking down a fair bit of it for themselves. Zacchaeus was so short, he had to climb a tree to get a look at Jesus as He walked by; Jesus spotted him and invited Himself over for dinner. By the time Jesus gets to Zacchaeus’ place, Zacchaeus has repented, is restoring to those he has robbed four times over, and gives half of his goods to the poor. If we substituted “drug dealer” for “tax collector”, that would have made for a great story of redemption.

Or was this theologian trying to make us feel warm-fuzzies for drug dealers and decide they’re really not so bad and are just misunderstood like Samaritans and we should let our daughters marry one?

In the words of Sam Goldwyn, “include me out”.

This is the same kind of thinking that leads purported Christian leaders to have a choir sing "Amazing Grace" when a court case involving InSite is heard: as if it's God's will for His people to be kept in a drugged-out zombie state, so long as it's "clean"; or to side with the "Occupy" movement, when Scripture calls on us to submit to authority, no matter how "bad" it may seem to us. I wonder if this is why it's so hard to get churches outside the DTES to get involved with ministry there?