listening to Neil Young - On The Beach
I had a discussion today about drugs, about dealers. Everybody was pretty animated, everybody had their piece to say. I was reminded of a Bob Doede class at Trinity. There was a few classes in which we discussed the problem of evil. It was heavy, we were discussing how a loving and omnipotent God can allow people to suffer. How can he allow little children to be raped and pregnant women to step on mines?
listening to Neil Young - Vampire Blues
How can he allow natural disaster to wipe out thousands of "innocent" people? There are a number of answers and the discussion became heated. Especially as Christians we all had our views on the problem of evil, it's something we had probably all had to think about. At the end of the section on the problem of evil, Doede said something that will stick with me. He said that we were welcome to our theories and that we should think about it, that we should try to reason out how a loving and omnipotent God can let these things happen, but there was one thing we had to be able to do. We had to be able to bring our theories forward and present them to the little child and his family, to the pregnant mother and her family, and to the victims of the natural disaster. If we can not do that, if our theories are divorced from the actual suffering, then we should not hold them.
listening to Neil Young - Revolution Blues
So we were talking about drugs. And we were talking about dealers. And it occured to me that we can talk about throwing them in jail, we can talk about shooting them, we can talk about giving the addict his drugs for free, but we have to be able to see these people when we pass judgement. We have to be able to know these people before we can say a word or pass a law. If you know someone, and love them, then you can condemn them to death. But not before. We have a real problem in our society, drugs are an enormous problem. And I want to find a solution, I'm sure most of us do. But before we do, we have to get to know the people who are on drugs and who are dealing drugs. We can't pass by on the other side of the street any longer.
fool sitting here typing
1 comment:
I remember those classes with Doede. I think that class sticks with me more than any other. What you said about drug addicts and dealers spoke to me with a holy spirit weight to it. It's exactly what I've been learning this past week here in Montreal. Keep writing man. Publish things. you have incite, my friend.
andrew.
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