Posted on 02/05/2017 8:33:30 AM PST by CHRISTIAN DIARIST
A plague has beset the Seattle area – an increase in heroin overdose deaths in recent years that has reached “crisis levels,” according to a report by a task force convened by the mayors of Seattle and neighboring cities in King County, Washington state.
The best way to address the plague, task force members agreed, is to establish so-called “Community Health Engagement Locations” where “supervised consumption occurs for adults with substance abuse disorders…”
Of course, what the task force really is recommending are legalized shooting galleries; supposed “safe” sites where junkies are given clean needles with which they are free to inject heroin or other poison into their veins with public health personnel standing by with naloxone in the event of an overdose.
This is what the liberal public health establishment euphemistically refers to as “harm reduction.” But what it really amounts to is social nihilism.
For drug addiction is a work of our adversary, the devil, whom, the Scripture warns, walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. And public policymakers, like Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, who bestow their official blessing on such social nihilist abominations as government-sanctioned shooting galleries are unwitting tools of the evil one.
Yet, Mayor Murray maintains that enabling heroin addicts and other junkies is the best way to address the plague afflicting his city, which has suffered some 3,700 overdoses in just the past two years.
What this Christ follower finds revealing is that, of 42 task force members, representing various and sundry public sector agencies and private sector organizations, Mayor Murray invited not one faith leader to participate.
Perhaps he was afraid that such a faith leader would recommend a program that would not invite junkies to shoot up in a putative “safe drug consumption site” – merely delaying their all but inevitable drug-related death – but an alternative Christ-centered program that would deliver junkies from their addiction.
Like Celebrate Recovery, which was founded in 1990 at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California and which has since spread to some 19,000 churches. That’s because there is no more effective drug recovery program in the world.
Mayor Murray could have invited John Baker, who headed up Saddleback’s Celebrate Recovery ministry, to address his task force. Or he could have arranged a special showing of the 2013 film “Home Run,” for which Celebrate Recovery figured prominently in the story.
Instead, the Seattle mayor chose to fellowship with social nihilists in Vancouver, Canada, which boasts the only government-sanctioned, supervised injection center in North America.
Murray’s visit to Insite, the destination site for Vancouver heroin addicts who want a nice, warm place to shoot up, made it clear to him, he said, “these sites save lives,” which is the goal shared by Murray and his fellow mayors in King County Washington state.
But Murray, and others who point to Insite as supposed proof that government-sanctioned shooting galleries save lives, have been deceived by the devil, whom the Scripture calls “the father of lies.”
Indeed, Vancouver recorded 215 overdose deaths in 2016, up 60 percent from 2015. And a report last month by the city of Vancouver noted that “the number of overdoses and associated consequences have been most severely felt in the Downtown Eastside (DTES)” where Insite, a magnet for injection drug consumption, is located.
“Harm reduction” measures, like those currently employed by drug-ridden Vancouver and those proposed by similarly drug-ridden Seattle, are ineffective against the plague of heroin overdose deaths.
That's because the pitiable souls struggling with heroin addiction are slaves of the evil one. And they cannot escape his clutches in their own strength.
They need the divine intervention of the one, the only true Higher Power, Jesus Christ. For whom the Son sets free is free indeed.
Well, I doubt that he’d give the junkie a dirty needle.
My understanding would be that Jesus would heal the Junkie and send him on his way with a serious but loving warning to the Junkie that the junkie should sin no more.
Is this a trick question?
Sorry. But let the social Darwinism take its course.
He would drive out the drug demons, who would then go into a herd of Democrats.
Would Jesus give a homeless person a bigger shopping cart?
Stupid question. Jesus would never aid or enable someone in their sin.
Not to sound snarfy or anything, but there's nothing to stop Christians in Sealth from ministering to the heroin users.
Jesus didn't bother with bureaucracies.
Jesus doesn’t believe in Darwin.
And it’s the consequences of sin. Not even Jesus would heal without the sick individual having faith.
Why don’t the social workers give methodone and never needles. And maybe free meals and a reading room. And a place to take a shower. In other words, shelter and kindness on a temporary basis. And some under cover cops to infiltrate the heroin industry to arrest the dealers and bust the Mexicans who are bringing the supply to the USA.
Jesus would probably just heal them of that demonic urge and tell them to go and sin no more.
I can’t recall one instance of Christ enabling sinful/bad behavior. Not once. He would heal a junkie who infected himself using a dirty needle, but he never ENABLED anyone in any way, shape or form. Ever.
I believe there are examples of Jesus meeting physical needs before healing people spiritually.
This is meeting one physical need (clean needle) prior to or instead of meeting the greater physical need (addiction). Or is it? The 12 step addiction treatment programs rely heavily on a spiritual intervention. Maybe addiction is at least partly spiritual.
It may be that the clean needle buys time to address the greater problem of addiction. But the municipality errs in that they aren’t attempting to treat the larger problem.
Jesus wouldn't enable he would heal them and command them to sin no more. The problem we are seeing today is that man is putting himself before God, and that never works out very well.
Jesus knew their heart/motive.
We can learn to discern and see that even a clean needle is still enabling and delaying the person from full realizing their need of Jesus who could then help them clear their mind and body of habitual impulse cycle of addiction.
I met a woman one time who admitted she was now buying her husbands illegal drugs because he was bed ridden. She hated doing it but was pleasing her husband rather than trust and please God, maybe her husband would have been healed of his addiction if she had stood firm and not bought them? But she enabled him right on through til death. very sad for them both.
God will always help anyone who asks and is sincere and perseveres through the inevitable temptations that satan will try to keep a person stuck in addiction or sin of any sort.
I just know we all face judgement in the end and I don’t want to have to answer for helping a person continue in addictive sin (chemical, physical whatever)
I think about my Grandfather who was an alcoholic when he accepted Jesus. He continued to go out with his friends who would get him drunk. It took 9 months for the Spirit to convince him that he needed to change friends and habits enough to give up the alcohol.
No, a clean needle is not food or water, any more than a municipality is Jesus.
But I don’t think I would fault a municipality for trying to minimize harm by providing a clean needle. The problem with the story is that the municipality is not doing anything else. They can’t minister to the spirtual needs, and they aren’t reaching out to those who can.
Some people aren’t going to be ready yet to turn to Christ. Let alone beat their addiction. Let them die? Or buy them time? What would Jesus do?
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