BRATTLEBORO-A petition to "Revitalize Main Street Brattleboro: Support Small Businesses and Public Safety" is circulating in town.
I am not writing as a small business owner. Instead, I write as a private citizen and as faith leader of a faith community (Centre Congregational Church).
For this reason, I should, and do, approach the issue of business and public safety with a unique and faith-based vantage that is not necessarily in agreement or in opposition to the petition. We simply view the same problem through a different theological lens.
People of faith believe that all are created in the imago dei, the image of God. Hence, we resist "othering." Because we are all created and loved by God, it is incumbent upon us "to love our neighbors as ourselves" (Mark 12:31).
We cannot exclusively view this issue through the same lens as small business owners do or as the petition does. The petition overwhelmingly views the issue of public safety from a financial standpoint. While that is certainly important and valid, it is not the primary premise upon which people of faith decide matters that relate to a wounded and hurting world.
As a people of faith, we subscribe to God's "preferential option for the poor" that is best articulated in Matthew 25:35-40. ("For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.")
Centre Church feeds. Centre Church clothes. Centre Church visits. As well we should.
Many wish Brattleboro to return to the "good old days" - let us call it a "Make Brattleboro Great Again" campaign.
The primary means by which the petition seeks to accomplish this goal is through law enforcement. (And the creation of safety zones - presumably areas from which the danger would be pushed to other zones?)
Yet law enforcement fails to address the five primary causes of Brattleboro's crisis:
1. Lack of substance-abuse treatment for those without funds (national health care)
2. Lack of mental health treatment for those without funds (national health care)
3. Lack of affordable housing (low- and middle-income housing)
4. The increasing income gap in the United States (widening income disparity) that forces the least capable to proportionally bear the most burden while the most capable proportionally bear the least burden
5. The Left's knee-jerk reflective response to excuse the poor choices and poor behavior that individuals voluntarily make (lack of accountability for those who need assistance).
Relating to the theological concept of the imago dei is the reality that people are not intrinsically, fundamentally, or inherently worse than they were 50 years ago, when Brattleboro was a law-abiding ideal. To believe that is akin to believing that some races are inherently better than others.
What has changed is not peoples' goodness or worthiness, their work ethic, or their constitutions as divinely created humans. No. What has changed are two big things:
1. Macroeconomics that affect wages, cost of living, health care, and housing
2. Pharmacology. The strength of drugs, such as fentanyl, is devastating.
The petition does nothing to address the potency of drugs or the lack of opportunities that many Americans face.
I am not opposed to the petition. I believe that until there are substantive solutions in place, taxpayers and small businesses should not and must not be run out of town. Each is the proverbial goose that lays the golden eggs that ensure mental health care, substance-abuse treatment, and affordable housing can be provided.
That being said, we must recognize the imago dei in all people and ensure that our president, our elected representatives in Washington, D.C. and Montpelier, and our town Selectboard members address the macro issues that are causing the crisis in Brattleboro.
Rev. Dr. Scott Couper
Brattleboro
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