Audio Transcript
Welcome back to the podcast on this 24th anniversary of 9/11. If you have not heard “John Piper’s 9/11 Radio Interview,” be sure to do so today. That’s the title and it’s in the archive at askpastorjohn.com. A historically significant find we added to the site not long ago.
But today is dedicated to another matter. Over the years we’ve talked a lot about alcohol, drunkenness, nicotine, smoking, vaping, chewing tobacco, misuse of caffeine, painkillers, morphine — and, of course, marijuana. Proverbs 23:29–35 frequently comes up in those conversations. And that text is in our Bible reading today, so it’s on my mind. Though Proverbs 23:29–35 is a passage about drunkenness, its warnings apply broadly to many substances, including the one we’re focusing on today. I tried to capture these types of shared principles in the APJ book, specifically in the digest of episodes on substances on pages 269–76.
And today the focus is pot. For a long time, various religions have used marijuana in pursuit of a spiritual high — to create a divine connection or an altered state of consciousness that they believe deepens faith or opens the mind to the sacred. We’ll explore mysticism next time. And we’re also not talking today about the medical use of marijuana, now legal in 39 states, plus Washington, DC; Puerto Rico; Guam; and the US Virgin Islands. If you’re using it under a doctor’s care, that’s not the issue here, as you’ve said in the past.
Our focus today is recreational use — now legal in 24 states; Washington, DC; and Guam. In addition, several other states have decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana. You can see where the trend is headed. Just over a decade ago, recreational cannabis was illegal in all fifty states. No longer. With each passing year, this conversation becomes more pressing for Christians, pastors, parents, and churches. So, when you take all this in, what comes to your mind?
Our Nation’s Changing Laws
What I want to draw attention to, by way of exhortation and encouragement, even though it may sound pessimistic to some, is that this fact, the legalization of pot, draws attention to something that we need to be aware of and we need to adjust our thinking about — namely, that the church for a long time has leaned too heavily on the overlap between the state and the church for the strength of our conviction concerning what is right and wrong.
“To be a Christian, a true Christian, is a very radical thing. It’s a miraculous thing. It’s a supernatural thing.”
In other words, if the state has regarded something as wrong or illegal, then the church hasn’t had to work very hard to teach any deep roots for the conviction or any thorough biblical argumentation or any conviction-strengthening inspiration, because everybody just assumes that the behavior is out of bounds. The state expectations and the cultural mores overlap with Christian ways, and so we can just coast.
Now, stop and think of the number of behaviors that were once illegal and are no more.
- Divorce was once illegal.
- Adultery and fornication were illegal.
- Homosexual practices were illegal.
- Indecency was illegal, in such a way that what’s considered acceptable in movies and on beaches today would have been forbidden.
- Sabbath-breaking was illegal.
- Abortion was illegal in every state.
And the list could go on and on.
Leaning on the Culture
Now, the point is not that these things should or shouldn’t be illegal. The point is that because they were illegal, the church didn’t have to think very hard or work very hard or teach very deeply or inspire very effectively to inculcate convictions and attitudes and behaviors in our young people or in new converts. We simply could assume that our people wouldn’t do these things because they were taboo and illegal in the culture.
The church leaned, you could say, on the culture for its catechism, its teaching, its inspiration, its conviction. So, the church assumed so much overlap between cultural convictions and Christian convictions that you didn’t often hear teaching or preaching that taught the church how to be alien or strange or weird or maligned. And I used the word maligned because that’s the word Peter uses in 1 Peter 4:3–4, when he says,
The time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them . . . and they malign you.
In other words, for most of American history, there has been so much overlap between cultural mores and outward Christian behaviors that this text in 1 Peter 4 seemed designed for another world — like, “What does that text have to do with anything in America?” For centuries, many Americans would go to church, not in spite of being maligned, but because not to go would be maligned.
Neglected Responsibility
So, the so-called Judeo-Christian ethic shaped laws and churches to such an extent that the culture, as much as the church, discipled our young people. I grew up in that world, anyway, when I was a kid. And little effort went into cultivating a mindset that Christians are not of this world but are sojourners and exiles and will be maligned if they walk in step with Jesus. Little effort went into helping Christians sink their moral roots deep into Christ and the gospel and his word and his way, such that we would be able to take a stand for some truth or some attitude or some behavior when no one else is standing with us.
That’s a biblical, spiritual, parental church responsibility that has been significantly neglected. And that neglect is now being exposed by the speed and flagrancy of the cultural normalization of sin. So, the destigmatization and legalization of attitudes and behaviors that are out of step with Christ can be, I think, a roundabout way of something good for the church. We should not have been leaning so heavily on the culture for support of what we held to be right and wrong.
America tried — Christians included — to use the legislature to banish the misuse of alcohol by making alcohol illegal. Prohibition lasted from 1920–1933. It failed. My guess is that a better case could be made today to outlaw alcohol than to outlaw cannabis. Forty percent of all violent crimes involve alcohol, and forty percent of all fatal motor-vehicle accidents involve alcohol. We may find that the legalization of pot puts it in that category, but maybe not. In fact, from what I read, it’s probably not going to work that way. It doesn’t have those same kinds of effects.
Primary Focus of the Church
My point is this: The focus and the moral energy of the church, the great majority of our effort, should not be on pursuing political and legal and cultural support for behaviors and attitudes we want to see in our children and in our churches. That is a misplaced focus. I’m not saying there’s no role for Christians in politics or legislatures where they can make their case for what they consider to be healthy for society. But I am saying that effort should never, never even come close to being the primary focus of pastors and parents.
The primary focus should be to do what only the Bible and only the gospel and only the Holy Spirit and the truth and Jesus can do in transforming human beings into the kind of Christ-exalting, Spirit-dependent, God-glorifying people who freely choose not to use drugs — whether caffeine or alcohol or cannabis or cocaine or meth or heroin — to escape into a world where Christ is less clearly perceived, and the Scriptures are less understood and precious, and the Spirit is less personal, and the glory of God is less satisfying, and the way of righteousness is less defined, and the path of obedience is less compelling. We want Christians who freely reject anything that would put them in that kind of mindset.
To be a Christian, a true Christian, is a very radical thing. It’s a miraculous thing. It’s a supernatural thing. It requires not a little bit of effort while we try to get the world on our side (which, by definition, is never going to happen). It requires the whole focus of the pastoral ministry — evangelizing and preaching and worshiping and counseling and teaching and setting radical examples for the people. It requires focus — Spirit-dependent, Bible-saturated efforts of parents to call down the miracle, through their parenting and through the church, of the creation of young people who are joyfully willing to be out of step with the world.
That’s the message, I think, God is sending us in the destigmatization and normalization and legalization of behaviors and attitudes and drugs that we think are out of step with the gospel. It’s a call to be the church and to be the home.
