Intro

Two Letters to the Editor

· Social Responsibility – ‘Social Action’

· Personal Responsibility – ‘Personal Holiness’

Both – And

Words

· Families of Words in English

o ‘Right’ – Righteous, Righteousness

o ‘Just’ – Justice, Justify, Justification

· Families of Words in Hebrew and Greek

o All Overlap in their Translations to English

Scriptures

· Pro 13:23; 19:17; 22:22-23; James 1:27

· Amos 5:11-15; 21-24; Mat 25:31ff; Col 3:1-14

Ideas

· Holiness as ‘Restraint’ – Not Giving In to Temptation

· Holiness as ‘Love’ – Other Centred

· Emphasis on Vulnerable – Who to Love

· Doing What is Right – ‘Right’-eousness

· Doing What is Fair – ‘Just’-ice

So What?

Expand Our Thinking

· What is God’s Will

· What Pleases God

· What Angers God

· What Obedience Requires

Consider Our Involvement

Don't Stereotype Youth

[Letter to Editor, KW Record]

August 11, 2008

Peter G. Ringrose

Re: Youth crime

Harold Albrecht, the MP for Kitchener-Conestoga, recently sent out a public flyer that expressed concern about the inadequacies of the criminal youth justice system deterring crime, and referred to convicted youths as "thugs, punks and hoodlums."

Family and Children's Services are acutely aware that many youth are subjected to numerous abuses, traumas and corrupting influences for which they have no personal responsibility.

Indeed, many of the troubling behaviours that youth display would not have developed if their environmental circumstances had been appropriately different. It is our mission to do all that is within our power to alter such circumstances for the better.

Victims understandably feel outraged by crimes committed against them. However, publicly labelling convicted youth as "punks" and "hoodlums" are sure to awaken negative images and stereotyping that only lead to increased fear, anger, and a polarizing of us versus them mentality.

These tactics exacerbate the problem. After all, these "punks," "hoodlums" and "thugs" are also our sons, daughters, siblings, grandchildren and neighbours.

Peter G. Ringrose

Executive Director, Family and Children's Services -- Waterloo Region

Kitchener

Young Criminals Are Punks And Thugs

[Letter to Editor, KW Record]

August 18, 2008

Sarah Hoffard

To the people upset by the use of the terms "punk" and "thug" to refer to young criminals -- the people who say "My child is a criminal and I don't appreciate them being referred to in such a way" -- I ask who was it who threw a brick through my windshield recently? And who was it that then jumped in and took everything of value?

If it was your son or daughter that makes them a thug or a punk.

I was the victim of a crime, and I think we need more focus on the criminals -- not arguing about the words we use to call these delinquents.

Stop protecting the criminals and criticizing the victims. Kitchener Conestoga MP Harold Albrecht is on the money on this matter with his no-nonsense views on youth crime -- and I applaud him.

To the person who broke into my car: I want you to know that tonight I will pray for you. I will pray that someday you will learn to stand up like a man and be somebody; someone who earns what they want rather than taking them from the people who worked hard to earn them for themselves.

So to the parents of these punks and thugs, I think you should focus on changing these children rather than what they are called.

Sarah Hoffard, Kitchener