This is a mea culpa, of sorts -- a repentance for allowing the Good News of Jesus Christ, which Gospel Mission has been promoting for nearly 85 years, to get clouded with a political matter.
The CBC is running a feature today on the tenth anniversary
of InSite, the supervised drug-injection facility in Vancouver. Initially, it
was located in 327 Carrall Street, on the ground floor of the building that has
housed Gospel Mission since the 1940s. That same site is now The Lord's Rain; I would call that a case of God redeeming an entire building -- bravo for the ironies He sends us!
A CBC reporter called us a couple of weeks ago, asking if
she could interview one of the proponents of InSite at The Lord’s Rain -- going “back to where it all began”, as it were. But we turned her down, and in the process
gave her an earful about our opposition to the facility and its concept. Certainly, we've made no secret of our feelings about the facility.
She called me yesterday, asking for our statement on the
opposition to it. Barry, Janet and I had come up with an agreed-on message: that we see no good in InSite and that the money spent on the
facility would have been better spent on recovery programs and detox
facilities. That's the message I delivered to her.
But on reflection, I realize that I missed an opportunity to say not what we’re against, but what we are for.
(I have to be careful here, lest I appear to be throwing Barry and Janet under the bus: I did help craft the message and none of us raised this point at the time; but, while I can't speak for them, I believe that, if any of us had raised it, we would have agreed on it.)
So for the record, what are we for?
- We are for lives turning around
- We are for second chances
- We are for healing (not just reducing harm but eliminating it)
- We are for hope
- We are for Christ, because it’s in Him – and only Him – that all these things can be achieved.
Anything that doesn’t provide for that is in opposition. (There’s no shortage of things to be against these days: Jesus gives us a
focus on something to be for.)
There are many things that cannot be fixed quickly and can’t
be fixed at all, using human strength, but with Jesus, anything is possible.
Jesus is the one-size-fits-all solution because He is exactly what every one of
us needs to address our unique situation. Whether it’s drug addiction, mental
illness, poverty, bad decisions leading to bad situations; even a general
emptiness in life – the feeling that something is missing – He is the only Way.
Our job is to promote that message: a positive message – not
the negative one of what we’re against.
The Lord’s Rain has accomplished a lot because of that
positive message and God’s Will for people to know His Son and be healed of all things.
And that's what we're for.
3 comments:
As both a Christian and a supporter of Insite and similar 'harm reduction' initiatives across Canada, I appreciate your post. As one involved in a similar community to yours in Toronto - the Dundas and Sherbourne area - I am a great believer in the churches working together with street engaged social agencies in providing help to those who are among the least in our society. Having read Gabor Mate's 'The the realm of Hungry Ghosts' - a must read for anyone working with people living with addictions - I believe that part of the harvest God is calling us to is to walk alongside and build community with those living with life destroying addictions. Just as we would never withhold insulin from people suffering from diabetes because only Jesus heals, so we should never withhold whatever means is necessary to provide those living with addiction the supports they need to engage as fully responsible citizens in our society. It is hard work but isn't that what Christ calls us to? To work with the easily reproached and most marginalized, treating them and walking with them as though they too are children of God?
See http://www.homelessguide.com/2012/11/remembering-louis.html
http://www.homelessguide.com/2013/06/trauma-and-addiction.html
Sorry - one last thought.
Heard Dr. Mate speak in Toronto recently and subsequently emailed him the following:
On 2013-06-10, at 6:54 AM, John Deacon wrote:
Message:
Was at All Saints Church on Saturday, truly impressed with your message, indeed the entire event!
Thought of a bible verse which can be interpreted to validate not only harm reduction principles but the imperative for advocacy on behalf of the most vulnerable, the traumatized, the abused, the victims of systemic injustice etc:
"Alcohol is for the dying, and wine for those in bitter distress. Let them drink to forget their poverty and remember their troubles no more.
Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed. Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless, and see that they get justice." Proverbs 31:6-9
Gabor replied to the email with:
Thanks, John. Great quote, i'll be using it.
Gabor
This to me suggests that there are ways that Christian agencies can work with secular ones in helping the most distressed among us.
Drew - I respectfully disagree.
Rulers should not crave alcohol.
For if they drink, they may forget the law
and not give justice to the oppressed.
Alcohol is for the dying,
and wine for those in bitter distress.
Let them drink to forget their poverty
and remember their troubles no more.
Proverbs 31:5-7
We look to the Bible for many things but were any government to incorporate the alcohol policy as prescribed above it would be advancing a policy few who take the Bible literally could subscribe to!
An alcohol only policy for the dying, the distressed and the overly troubled would be spoken against as a wanton disregard for social propriety; an excessive liberalism which can only lead to more drunkenness.
Furthermore, forbidding alcohol to those who rule would bring the political process to a complete stop. Who would pursue public office?
Alcohol and/or drug addiction we understand to be a huge social problem derailing families, relationships and personal health. But if we take these verses at face value, those problems pale in comparison to the real damage alcohol does.
Alcohol causes those who govern to deny justice to the oppressed. It mutes the law that demands the oppressed be set free. Alcohol blinds us to the severe judgment we face when we abdicate those trapped by poverty.
Poverty is a cruel master exacting its own hardship, its own sense of isolation and reproach that God understands. He would prefer a better remedy than alcohol, but in the absence of care, resource and relief from those who could provide it, God provides the poor man wine to escape his bitter circumstance.
But he denies such an escape to those in power. He insists on their sobriety so they apply themselves to relieving the distresses those in poverty face.
Of course God wants all people to be free of all addiction, completely free to do his good will. But so few are and likely because his strength is better revealed in our weakness, even in our addictions.
A harm reduction approach to addiction is the next best option to abstinence just as insulin is the next best option to being cured of diabetes. It is what is needed in the absence of outright cure to enable a drug dependent individual to function as best as they can and move towards socially responsible behaviour among their peers. It points the individual in the direction of recovery, limits the individual exposure to infection and improves their health outcomes.
Dr. Mate tells the story of a conversation he had with a Native woman who had become a heroin addict in her mid teens. The woman as a young girl was separated from her family at age 6 and sent to a Christian residential school.
Shortly after her arrival there and conversant only in her native tongue, she was pulled aside by a teacher and told she was forbidden to speak her native language at school. To reinforce her rebuke, the teacher put a thumb tack through the child's tongue.
Although young girl's stay there would be compounded by other forms of abuse, the trauma of this one event triggered a self-loathing within her that has haunted her ever since. Her inner self became a hell not her own making. Drugs became her only relief. To be sober was to be in torment, fiercely acquainted with the temptation to end it all by taking her own life. Drugs kept her alive, kept alive the possibility she might be loved someday and lead a somewhat normal life.
Sure we can wish for abstinence for her, but what she really needs is to be loved. With love all things are possible and to the end Insite keeps her alive.
Post a Comment