Why do people feel it’s right pick on churches and Christians?
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Last week there was a slur made against Christians relating to the neutering and spaying of pets. This week we have someone unloading the problems of homelessness in Chilliwack on the doorstep of one church. I feel compelled to make a few comments here.
Far too often, there are slurs and nasty spirited comments made about churches and Christians in letters to the editor — I wonder why it is allowed to be printed. If these comments were targeted against other belief systems such as Hindu, Sikh, and Buddhist religions, it would not be tolerated.
Churches are made up of families and individuals who want to have a relationship with God. They do not pretend to be perfect and many of them are struggling to make ends meet themselves. And yet, every church is committed to helping those in need and they do so with astounding generosity and compassion. Just because there aren’t large sophisticated programs blatantly visible does not mean they are not involved. Many churches provide financial support to programs already in place to enable those ones to be more effective and efficient. Many families and bible study groups support homelessness on an individual basis.
Homelessness is a very complex issue and is not something as simple as affordable housing. Through my work in health care, I see those complexities. A few of the more obvious issues include: people with addictions who are not ready or willing to work through rehabilitation, individuals who vandalize every home they’ve been provided, others who do not want to work or be held accountable for managing their money responsibly, others who are mentally ill and refuse treatment, single-parent families who cannot make ends meet, and individuals with disabilities. There are many tragic stories of people’s journeys to being homeless and destitute, but how to help them out of the cycle is a very difficult problem to solve, a huge mountain to climb.
Deciding that a church should provide property to build low-cost housing to solve the problem suggests profound ignorance on the issues of homelessness in Chilliwack. If you feel churches are not doing enough, I’d like to encourage you to get involved and help us do it better.
P. McCunn
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