Andrew shows that cocaine has lost its aura of danger, and points to a suppressed World Health Organisation study that suggests cocaine use is not as harmful as portrayed on anti-drugs adverts.

I’m not that interested in the medical science, and I’m not suggesting you go out and take some!  Of more interest is Andrew Brown’s description of the problem that underlies drug use (emphasis mine):

My own view is that “harmful use” – whether of cocaine, alcohol, over-eating, or any other self-destructive behaviour – is a symptom of an underlying malaise. This is when a desperate person starts worshipping a substance, or turning it into the primary relationship and the primary source of pleasure. Then what happens is that the substance or the behaviour starts possessing the person. Much better, I feel, that humans should gain this kind of satisfaction from other living people, from meaningful work, and from families especially. So rather than focusing on symptoms, politicians might better spend their time thinking why, under their management, the structures that used to hold society together and support people to have healthy and fulfilled lives seem to have crumbled.

I have no idea about Andrew’s religious beliefs, or lack of.  But it is fascinating how the language of worship is used.  The substance has become an idol, a functional saviour, offering satisfaction but leading to slavery.  Andrew would rather we look to work, family and relationships as better idols, but that’s no solution.  None of these are inherently reliable and none can give true meaning.  Only Jesus can satisfy.  Worshipping him is true liberation.  Which is why the best solution to the drugs problem is not education or wealth, but the good news of Jesus Christ.

This is the diagnostics.  What about the cure?  Not much time for this!  Cure is NOT a system of redemption.  It is not 12 steps to happiness, or any other methodology.  We can usefully utilise all that the world is learning, but on the issue of CURE we have a fundamental difference.  We do not offer a system.  We offer much more than this.  We offer much more than a code of conduct that defines normal.  Don’t try to argue for a better ideology.

We offer a REDEEMER.  Our hope is in the Person, Presence, Promises, Provision and Power of a Redeemer.

Hope is not a set of insights or a strategy.  Hope is a person: his name is Jesus.

1.Sin is vertical.
Sin is against God.  Sin is self-sovereignty, self-worship; “I want what I want.”  But this is insanity!  We want to be God.

2.Sin as dramatically relational.
We sin in community.  Sin causes relational dysfunction.  E.g. Adam and Eve blaming each other.  Galatians 5:15 we destroy others by our sin, e.g. a child growing up in a home of violence.  Sin wrecks the lives of others.

3.Sin is environmental.
Think of Romans 8:18ff.  We see the effects of sin in diseases, physical brokenness, etc.  “Environment” means everything outside my heart.  Physical and neurological problems all flow from the Fall when the entire world was shattered.  So don’t deny that these things exist, e.g. children whose brains cannot process emotional issues.  Don’t look down on medical care.  Christians should be campaigning for good and safe working places, clean water, etc because we know these things matter.  We should be at the leading edge of things like neurobiology.

4.Sin as psychological.
Distortion and delusion and dysfunction are rooted in the depths of our thoughts and motivations and identities.  This dimension covers very broad categories, e.g. foolishness, evil desires, self-identities, motivations.
Tripp thinks that we are just scratching the surface.  The modern Biblical Counselling movement is 40-50 years old, so has a long way to go.  Don’t be arrogant!  Engage with research, culture, etc.  Learn.

5.Sin as historical.
Sin has effects down through history.  The Fall is a good example!  So don’t be scared of thinking about the historical impact of past sin.  The cause of sin is our sinful nature.  But our personal history gives tracks for our sinful nature to run on.  (Have you noticed that we all sin in different ways?)  Investigating the past is not necessarily trying to escape responsibility.

These are 5 wide-ranging areas of sin.  Do not be reductionist.  When sitting with a person all 5 dimensions need to be at play.

He starts with a quote from Eugene Peterson, in Subersive Spirituality.  (Link is to Amazon.co.uk; you can read inside.  Search for ‘caring’ then read pages 155 following.)

We know more about caring than any other generation that has ever lived on the face of the earth. We have more men and women professionally trained in the skills of caring and committed to professional lives of caring, and yet the reports coming back day after day from the field – people telling stories of what has happened to them in the hospital, church, with the social worker, at school – document an alarming deterioration of care on all fronts.   …

So, “Teach us to care.” We begin with a realization of our poverty: We do not know how to care. What we have been prayerlessly engaged in and glibly calling care, is not care. It is pity, it is sentimentality, it is do-goodism, it is ecclesiastical colonialism, it is religious imperialism. Caring, noble and commendable as it seems, is initiated by a condition that can, and often does, twist it into something ugly and destructive. That condition is need. (i.e. responding to need, which is good but not enough)

But there is another element in this scenario that is frequently missed and when missed, silently and invisibly squeezes all the cure out of care. That element is sin.

(The rest of this post is abbreviated notes from the talk.)

In the rush to care, don’t bandage wounds too quickly.  Wounds are the chance to open up to God and others.

To do caring we need to know our calling.  2 Corinthians 5:14ff.  This is not an evangelistic passage. It’s a counselling passage!  It is the Corinthian believers who need to be reconciled to God.  This reconciliation is progressive sanctification.  Sin is living for ourselves. To the degree we live this way, to this degree we need reconciliation.

Our calling is NOT (first) to fix people.  It is to be an ambassador of Christ and reconcile people to God, so they become people living for God.  We must not think of “normal” without thinking of God and people trusting in him.

What is our core diagnostic?  Every system of care has a philosophy of “what is wrong.”  Accuracy of diagnosis → effectiveness of cure.

The Bible is simple (but not reductionist) about this.  The Problem is Sin.  However, normally our understanding of sin is reductionist, i.e. about “bad behaviour.”

In the next post I’ll outline 5 Dimensions of Sin that Paul Tripp gives.