Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
Politics and Religion
Marijuana and Religion

Marijuana and Religion

Last updated on: January 24, 2019 at 6:00 am by Gene Veith

0 Comments

Marijuana and Religion 2019-01-20T21:40:14-05:00 Gene Veith

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

It looks like marijuana will soon be legalized everywhere. There is no organized opposition–not even among conservative Christians–so I see nothing that will stop it. When that happens, it is likely to pass into general use. Eventually, it may become a normal accompaniment of everyday life. If that happens, how do you think widespread marijuana use will change the culture?

The apologists for the drug think it will be a medical panacea and that it will usher in an era of peace, love, and understanding. The skeptics will make jokes about a stoned nation void of ambition and constantly afflicted with the munchies. But, seriously, what might be its cultural effect? Will people become less angry and more “mellow”? What might marijuana do to our music, art, and entertainment? (OK, maybe those are already created under the influence.) Will a marijuana haze make the general public more introspective or more social? Will people have the drive that built the nation or lapse into passivity?

I have no idea. But I do suspect that cultural marijuana will make people religious. That is, having a particular kind of religion. They will most emphatically not be scientifically-materialistic atheists. But they will not necessarily be religious in a Christian sense, though perhaps Christians can get through to them. The church would do well to prepare for this kind of “spirituality.”

The new strains of marijuana available today, I am told, are much more powerful than anything Baby Boomers experimented with in the 1960’s. I am also told that different products sold in the dispensaries–and we now have one in our little rural town, though requiring an easily procured medical license–are marketed for different effects and different kinds of highs. One of those is a high that is “mystical.” Drugs are often said to “open the mind” to “transcendent experiences.”

I came across a post (HT: George Strieter) from a couple of years ago from E. D. Watson, a writer and artist. I believe she is a Catholic. She describes her life-long yearning for mystical experience and tells how marijuana helped her to find that. I urge you to read it all. Note too why she gave it up. Read it all, but here are some excerpts.

From E. D. Watson, CONFESSIONS OF A MYSTIC MANQUÉ:

As an undergraduate anthropology student, I took a class on worldwide religious rituals, wherein I learned that the whole point of drugs, as far as many non-industrial cultures are concerned, is access to the Divine. The idea of recreational drug use—getting stoned and playing hours of Mario Cart, say—would be blasphemous. . . .

The drug [marijuana] interrupted the steady stream of self-criticism that makes creative endeavors a slog. Moreover, I also found that when high, there was an easy, crystal-clear line of communication between myself and God. Sitting on the floor with paper and glue spread around me like a planetary ring, I could pose theories to God. I could ask questions. Responses arrived inside my mind without delay. The voice that spoke was not the familiar voice that narrates my near-constant internal chatter. It was gentle, vast, and succinct. Though I didn’t always like the answers, their inherent truth was undeniable.

But after a few years, I began to feel like God wanted me to stop.

I resisted at first. Why would God want me to stop doing the thing that allowed us to hang out together and have conversations? It was societal pressure, I decided. I was at the age where a person has to decide who and how they want to be. Did I want to be a status-quo person with clean urine and health insurance, or did I want to talk to God? That question was easy to answer.

I kept getting high, but it wasn’t the same anymore. I could still “hear” the voice I’d come to think of as God’s, but I began to detect a level of disappointment in our conversations. The voice, which was infinitely patient, never scolded me, but I could tell that It—whatever It was—was weary of the routine we’d established. This realization stung. . . .

Not long after that, I gave it up.

The silence stunned me like a hammer-blow. When I’d go outside, the sky was just the sky; the trees mere trees. There were no messages beneath the thin surface of reality. Nothing throbbed with meaning. To say that I missed God would be putting it lightly. The line had gone dead. I could have started smoking again, but I feared a cosmic rebuke. For months I was an excommunicant, roaming wordless wilds. My art and writing dried to a trickle. . . .

. . . True mystical experiences are not a cozy living room to which one might retire at leisure. They are conferred at God’s discretion, if at all. Drugs were, in hindsight, my way of trying to force God’s hand.

This is not inchoate “spirituality.” This is a testimony of a theist. God talks to her. She talks to Him. They chat. She has a personal relationship with God. They “hang out.”

This is a pure example of “enthusiasm,” of religion and of God Himself as sheer experience. It is an attempt to know God wholly apart from His Word.

I won’t say that Watson approaches God with no sense of her sinfulness or that there is more to Him that she perceives. She is a Christian at some level, and other of her writings show that she has a theology. Here she senses God’s disapproval at their drug-enabled communion, feeling that He is disappointed in her. Finally, she realizes that drugs are “my way of trying to force God’s hand,” that God must have the initiative, an intuition that we must be dependent on God’s grace.

People today have trouble even conceiving of God and they tend to be oblivious to spiritual reality. Drugs can help that, I suppose, but at the cost of reducing Him to a mental sensation, a high. And yet some Christians say that they get high on Jesus. But if being high is what they get from Jesus, how is that any different than getting high on drugs?

Christianity is not about feelings, however mystical and transcendent, but about truth. It has to do with language–God’s Word–and His coming in the flesh of Jesus Christ. It’s about the Cross–Christ’s suffering and our suffering; His death and our death; His resurrection and our resurrection–and it is about vocation and loving and serving one’s neighbor. Again, I’m pretty sure that Watson knows this, but a marijuana devotee–or a “Jesus-makes-me-high” devotee–might miss it all, while being quite satisfied by enjoying a constant religious high.

Rastafarians consider marijuana to be a sacrament. The Native American Church uses peyote as a sacrament. (Activists in Colorado, having legalized marijuana, are now working to legalize “magic mushrooms.” Colorado will be so religious.) Watson was using marijuana in that way, as a means of grace, as a way to connect with God. The actual sacraments connect us to God by faith. And they do so through Christ.

How might Christians reach out to someone with a marijuana-infused religion? Pastors, how would you deal with a member of your flock who is full of this kind of “experience” with God? How can we penetrate the haze with the Law and the Gospel?

Photo: “Forgive Me Father For I Have Sinned,” by Adrianna Broussard via Flickr, Creative Commons License

Marijuana and religion

mysticism

Previous Post

January 23, 2019

Opiates Come to the Suburbs

Next Post

January 25, 2019 Tyrannical Souls

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"Turns out, she wasn’t the right tool for the job."

1another

Luther on Tools

"You may have just given me my next sermon opening line."

1another

Luther on Tools

"So Katie Zacharia lasted only a demiScaramucci as press secretary......"

reg

Luther on Tools

"Apropos to the post on Gen Z a couple days ago: "If you want the ..."

Steve Bauer

Luther on Tools

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category America Apologetics Art baseball Bible Blog Christ Church crime Culture Economics Education Ethics Family Food Football Government History Holidays Holy Week Humor International Islam Language Law Life Issues Literature Media Medicine Movies Music Nature News Personal Philosophy Politics psychology Reformation Religions Sacraments Science sex Social Science Sports technology television terrorism Theology Uncategorized Vocation war

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What is the repeated phrase at the end of Psalm 136?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Let everything praise him Praise the Lord Blessed be the Lord His love endures forever

Books by This Author Books by Gene Veith

See All Titles »