False teacher Chuck “Jesus is not the only way” Currie wrote an op-ed in The Onion (oops, I meant the Oregonian) about Ending Homelessness. While I appreciated his concession in the title (“Plan after well-meaning plan in the region misses the mark, failing to address root causes”), the piece reads like a self-parody. Here’s my paraphrase: “We’ve had several expensive, decade-long programs to end homelessness and the situation keeps getting worse, but the programs really helped a lot, and we just need to spend lots more and then everything will be fixed! Oh, and we need to take other people’s money by force to make that happen, because Jesus said to!”
Read it yourself and see what I mean.
He appealed to our need to be our “brother’s keeper.” But does that apply here? That term occurs in Genesis 4:9 (Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?”). Most people will note that Cain was referring to his literal brother, not all of humanity. Also, he didn’t say it in reference to being his brother’s caretaker. He had murdered Abel and was basically giving the original version of the smart-aleck response, “It wasn’t my day to watch him.”
So once again Chuck mangles the Bible to advance his politics-disguised-as-religion agenda. He picks a verse that he thinks backs up his point, but he has already mocked the Bible in whole and in part, so why should we take him seriously when he takes a verse out of context to use as a trump card?
This comment seemed a bit hypocritical, considering how Chuck mocks the traditional (read: real and biblical) view of marriage and is pro-legalized abortion:
This rhetoric has found expression in the tea party movement, which rejects traditional religious understandings of justice and compassion and has left even progressive politicians timid.
I wonder why Chuck doesn’t apply the “brother’s keeper” line of thinking to the unborn?
If Chuck really wants to solve homelessness he needs to switch political parties. One example: We need to drill for more oil. That not only provides lots of high paying jobs but it lowers energy costs and the costs of nearly everything else people buy — thus helping them stay in their own homes!
Also, the increase in the minimum wage always reduces jobs for young black men, whose unemployment rate sits at 40%. Thanks, Chuck & Co.!
We also need to teach comprehensive sex education, but not in the way Chuck & Co. use that term. I mean telling kids that if they don’t have sex out of wedlock and get a high school degree, their chances of being poor or homeless are very, very low. But if they do the opposite their odds skyrocket. But the Left is too busy supporting Planned Parenthood’s failed program of encouraging kids to have allegedly consequence-free sex when they are “ready,” which, shockingly enough, is right about the time when they want to have sex!
Oh, and you could teach the Biblical model — again, the opposite of what Chuck teaches — and tell them that God designed sex for one man and one woman in a life-long commitment. The odds of that resulting in homelessness is also very, very low.
Side note: I like Oregon Live for allowing an actual discussion. Chuck also writes at the Huffington Post and they censor opposing views, regardless of how politely they are expressed. I was very encouraged by how the other commenters took Chuck to task — there is hope for Oregon!
We’d all like to reduce homelessness. The question is whether we’ll come up with adult solutions that actually improve the situation, or whether we’ll ignore those and just tell the government to fix it — with someone else’s money, of course.
Eternity Matters 
Yeah, theological liberals are all about traditional religious understandings! Didn’t the early church fathers take their 6 yr. old girls to gay pride parades, just like Chuck describes on his blog? Weren’t they pro-legalized abortion and pro-taxpayer funded abortions, just like Chuck & Co.?
I’m all for helping widows and orphans and the truly needy, but I prefer to do it with my own money (We’ve supported the Star of Hope homeless ministry for years, among other things). And if I cite Bible verses to support my views, I use them in context, and I don’t force them on non-believers. Chuck did the opposite of all of that.
Chuck’s version of Jesus has him telling us to ask Caesar to take from neighbor A by force (i.e., taxes) to “give” to neighbor B, even if it puts neighbor B and his descendants in semi-permanent bondage to the government.
One of the common sound bites pro-legalized abortionists like Chuck use against pro-lifers is this: “You shouldn’t complain about abortion if you aren’t going to adopt all the kids!” That argument fails on many levels, but it only seems fair to ask Chuck how many formerly homeless people he is currently housing.