✦ Belief ✦
Our Sincerely Held Beliefs
The six convictions that inform every sacrament,
every practice, every gesture of care.
the temple of harm reduction holds the following beliefs as central to its religious practice. These beliefs are sincerely held by the Temple’s congregation and inform every aspect of its ministry.
1. The Body Is Sovereign
We believe that the human body is sovereign and that the care of one’s own body, including the substances one places within it, is a matter of conscience and not of state. The right to self-determination over the body is not granted by government and cannot be revoked by government. To claim otherwise is to claim a jurisdiction over the soul that no temporal power possesses.
2. The Preservation of Life Is Sacred
We believe that the preservation of human life is a sacred obligation that supersedes the prohibitions of any human law. This belief is not unique to our tradition. It is a thread that runs through virtually every faith that has ever existed on this continent. In our tradition, the preservation of the life of a person who uses substances, by any means available and at any moment they are at risk, is not merely permitted. It is required.
3. Harm Reduction Is Ministry
We believe that the practice of harm reduction is a ministry in the historical and theological sense of that word. To minister is to provide care, witness, and presence to a person in need. To distribute the tools that allow a person to survive is no different in kind from distributing bread, blankets, or shelter. The medicine that prevents drug poisoning is sacramental in our tradition because it is the means by which the sacred work of preserving life is accomplished.
4. The Stranger Is Family
We believe in a covenant of mutual care that extends to every person who uses substances, whether or not we have ever met them. The stranger at the door is not a stranger. They are a fellow congregant of the Temple from the moment they ask for help. This belief obligates us to a national, and not merely local, practice of ministry.
5. Knowledge Is a Sacrament
We believe that accurate, non-judgmental, evidence-grounded information about substances is itself a sacrament. To withhold such information from a person who needs it, or to obscure it with shame or moralism, is to participate in the same harm we exist to reduce. Education is therefore not auxiliary to our religious practice. It is constitutive of it.
6. No Person Must Hit Bottom to Deserve Care
We reject the doctrine that a person must suffer before they deserve help. This doctrine has killed more people than any drug. We extend care without precondition. We do not require abstinence. We do not require recovery. We do not require that the recipient agree with our theology in order to receive its ministrations.