The Addict as Prophet: Part 1, The Need for a Theology of Addiction

I'd like to share some posts walking through some insights from Kent Dunnington's book Addiction and Virtue.

If you've read Reviving Old Scratch you know that, because of my life at Freedom Fellowship, we spend a lot of our time walking alongside friends struggling with addiction. One of the reasons I've grown disillusioned with progressive Christianity is how little it talks about addiction. Addiction stalks the margins of our society, like a hungry predator, so if you want to stand in solidarity with the margins you need to have something to say about addiction. But not many Christian bloggers write about addiction.

That said, I'm not particularly impressed with conservative conversations about addiction either.

In short, there's a gap here in our theological reflection, among both conservatives and progressives, and I think Dunnington's book is a provocative and helpful contribution.

And if you don't know a lot about addiction in America let me suggest you pick up Sam Quinones' Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic as a place to get started.