For my Australian and international friends, you might be surprised about our federal government's rationale when it comes to the drug-addicted. It is to give away crack pipes and set up closed environments to make taking drugs easier. Because of outrage from tax-paying citizens they have since backed down. There are some states that are going all-in enabling drug addiction for some of their worst-off citizens.
The question I'm asking myself is if one of my children was addicted to cocaine or heroin, would I make it easier to continue the addiction, or would I do everything, spend everything to help them get off drugs. I think most parents would choose the latter.
This got me thinking about compassion and how people approach it from two different sides. I don't know the motivation behind enabling addiction, poverty, crime, and homelessness so I can't explain where that thinking comes from.
We are facing some really difficult problems here in many of our big cities. Local and state policies seem to be making things worse, not better.
As a Christian, I am commanded to help the poor, the needy, and the most destitute. But why would I do things so differently from what is being practiced by these elected and unelected officials? One word, judgment, not of people but of right and wrong.
I believe in right and wrong, law and order, judgment, and forgiveness. It might sound compassionate to give crack pipes to addicts but nothing could be further from the truth. It's the same as providing tents for the homeless. Sounds like you are doing a good thing, but all you are doing is subsidizing and encouraging behavior that's taking that person in the opposite direction of where they should be going.
Well, what's your answer, Dean? You're not going to like it, but it's the exact opposite of what is being done now, almost draconian. My compassion does not allow for lawlessness. Living on the street addicted to plentiful drugs leads to crime, petty at first, tragic eventually. I am required to make a judgment and that's the difference between biblical and non-biblical compassion.
There seem to be no lines of right and wrong when it comes to non-biblical compassion. It's the same thinking that allows for 5-8-year-old children to be taught gender fluidity. If you think that's compassionate, you're a lunatic.
Truth is not subjective, there is no "your truth" or "my truth. There is the truth and it takes courage to live between the lines of biblical truth.