In northeastern India, a Christian priest is chaining people up and forcing them to listen to him read from the Bible as a '"treatment' for drug addiction. He claims to have had a lot of success with this program, but chances are that he hasn't tried to contrast wit with an alternative, like forcing people to listen to him reading from the Quran or Moby Dick.

New Kerala reports:

“Our method of reforming addicts is unique in the sense that we preach the tenets of the Bible and help them get rid of their habit of drug abuse,” said Pavkholian Dousel, the home’s founder. [...]

“You require padlocks and even chains to keep them here or else they would flee. Initially they find the whole process a bit hard, but they soon adapt to the situation and gradually manage to kick the habit of taking drugs,” Dousel said.

I just hope that American Christians don’t treat this sort of story as an inspiration for their own faith-based programs. There are already enough examples of Christians using harsh incarceration of troubled teens in order to “treat” them, and we don’t need any more.

 

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