Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 12, 1990 TAG: 9006120357
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE RELIGION WRITER
DATELINE: NEW ORLEANS LENGTH: Medium
Drug abuse comes from "seeking after meaning in a place where no meaning can come," Bennett said at a luncheon for RAPHA, a substance-abuse treatment program that stresses Christian teachings.
The overflow crowd applauded loudly Bennett's contention that he had "seen the face of evil" in his travels on the "drug circuit."
References to crack cocaine as "the devil" come too often from former addicts to be ignored, Bennett said, calling on his audience to work to bring those in need "to the God who heals."
He asserted that drug-abuse treatment cannot be effective unless it is based on a value system.
He recounted several horror stories of children being abused and killed by their parents' drug abuse.
Bennett, a Catholic and secretary of education in the Reagan administration, said, "We must have the courage in our classrooms, especially public-school classrooms, to say that there is a difference between right and wrong, and to say that the greatest institution is the family, man and wife, male and female joined together."
Bennett struck a number of other chords popular with his theologically conservative audience. "It is not an act of censorship to select art that lifts up the human spirit rather than art that degrades the human spirit," he said.
He said he believed he heard the "death knell of modernism" and its rejection of human, moral and spiritual approaches to problem-solving.
In a news conference after the session, Bennett said his appearance at a meeting that included a number of prominent figures from the ultraconservative leadership should not be read as an endorsement of any political faction in the denomination. He said he did not even understand exactly what the controversy was about.
by CNB