The Church’s Calling in an Age of Recreational Pot

00:00:00.000 | Well, in the morning after the crazy November 2020 election here in the states, there were

00:00:09.460 | several culture commentators who observed that amidst all of the confusion over who

00:00:14.260 | won the presidency, there was no mistaking who won the night. Marijuana. Four additional

00:00:21.520 | states passed ballot measures to legalize recreational use of pot for adults, and none

00:00:26.240 | of the votes were even close. Those states included Arizona, Montana, New Jersey, and

00:00:31.960 | South Dakota, bringing the total to 15 total states. And many remaining states have decriminalized

00:00:39.040 | it, showing where the cultural trajectory is headed. 37 states in total have legalized

00:00:45.880 | medical use marijuana, something that you support, Pastor John, if governed by appropriate

00:00:50.200 | physician oversight and prescriptions. You explained that way back in APJ 77, episode

00:00:56.200 | 77, back in the day. But just a decade ago, I believe recreational cannabis was illegal

00:01:01.520 | in all 50 states, and that's being overturned very quickly. And each year, this is growing

00:01:05.720 | as a bigger and bigger issue for Christians and pastors and parents and churches. Do you

00:01:11.400 | have anything new to say as recreational use gains widespread support in red and blue states

00:01:17.800 | across our country?

00:01:19.400 | It's not exactly new, but I do have something I want to say in regard to the fact that 10

00:01:27.040 | years ago, recreational cannabis was illegal in all 50 states, whereas this is increasingly

00:01:35.600 | not the case today. And what I want to draw attention to by way of exhortation and encouragement,

00:01:44.520 | even though it may sound pessimistic to some, is that this fact, the legalization of pot,

00:01:53.720 | draws attention to something that we need to be aware of and we need to adjust our thinking

00:02:00.320 | about, namely, that the church for a long time has leaned too heavily on the overlap

00:02:11.160 | between the state and the church for the strength of our conviction concerning what is right

00:02:19.740 | and wrong. In other words, if the state has regarded something as wrong or illegal, then

00:02:27.280 | the church hasn't had to work very hard to teach any deep roots for the conviction or

00:02:36.080 | any thorough biblical argumentation or any conviction strengthening inspiration because

00:02:44.400 | everybody just assumes that the behavior is out of bounds. The state expectations and

00:02:50.520 | the cultural mores overlap with Christian ways, and so we can just coast. Now stop and

00:02:59.080 | think of the number of behaviors that were once illegal and are no more. Divorce was

00:03:05.760 | once illegal. Adultery and fornication were illegal. Homosexual practices were illegal.

00:03:13.560 | Indecency was illegal in such a way that what's considered acceptable in movies and on beaches

00:03:20.300 | today would have been forbidden. Sabbath breaking was illegal. Abortion was illegal in every

00:03:26.360 | state, and the list could go on and on. Now, the point is not that these things should

00:03:34.760 | or shouldn't be illegal. The point is that because they were illegal, the church didn't

00:03:42.520 | have to think very hard or work very hard or teach very deeply or inspire very effectively

00:03:50.400 | to inculcate convictions and attitudes and behaviors in our young people or in new converts.

00:03:58.000 | We simply could assume that our people wouldn't do these things because they were taboo and

00:04:04.040 | illegal in the culture. The church leaned, you could say, on the culture for its catechism,

00:04:11.440 | its teaching, its inspiration, its conviction. So the church assumed so much overlap between

00:04:17.880 | culture convictions and Christian convictions that you didn't often hear teaching or preaching

00:04:25.240 | that taught the church how to be alien or strange or weird or maligned. And I use the

00:04:32.600 | word maligned because that's the word Peter uses in 1 Peter 4, verse 3, when he says,

00:04:40.040 | "The time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality

00:04:46.280 | and passions and drunkenness and orgies and drinking parties and lawless idolatry. With

00:04:52.640 | respect to this, they are surprised you do not now run with them anymore, and they malign

00:04:59.560 | you." In other words, for most of American history, there has been so much overlap between

00:05:08.280 | cultural mores and outward Christian behaviors that this text in 1 Peter 4 seemed designed

00:05:17.960 | for another world. Like, what does that text have to do with anything in America? For centuries,

00:05:25.000 | many Americans would go to church not in spite of being maligned, but because not to go would

00:05:31.920 | be maligned. So the so-called Judeo-Christian ethic shaped laws and churches to such an

00:05:42.600 | extent that the culture, as much as the church, discipled our young people. I grew up in that

00:05:49.520 | world anyway when I was a kid. And little effort went into cultivating a mindset that

00:05:55.960 | Christians are not of this world, but are sojourners and exiles and will be maligned

00:06:05.040 | if they walk in step with Jesus. Little effort went into helping Christians sink their moral

00:06:13.440 | roots deep into Christ and the gospel and his Word and his way such that we would be

00:06:23.240 | able to take a stand for some truth or some attitude or some behavior when no one else

00:06:30.600 | is standing with us. That's a biblical, spiritual, parental church responsibility that has been

00:06:38.680 | significantly neglected, and that neglect is now being exposed by the speed and flagrancy

00:06:50.000 | of the cultural normalization of sin. So the destigmatization and legalization of attitudes

00:07:00.720 | and behaviors which are out of step with Christ can be, I think, a roundabout way of something

00:07:09.520 | good for the church. We should not have been leaning so heavily on the culture for support

00:07:16.560 | of what we held to be right and wrong. America tried, Christians included, to use the legislature

00:07:24.600 | to banish the misuse of alcohol by making alcohol illegal. Prohibition lasted from 1920

00:07:31.440 | to 1933. It failed. My guess is that a better case could be made today to outlaw alcohol

00:07:41.680 | than to outlaw cannabis. Forty percent of all violent crimes involve alcohol. Forty

00:07:49.480 | percent of all fatal motor vehicle accidents involve alcohol. We may find that the legalization

00:07:57.560 | of pot puts it in that category, but maybe not. In fact, from what I read, it's not going

00:08:03.460 | to work that way. It doesn't have those same kind of effects. My point is this. The focus

00:08:11.660 | and the moral energy of the church, the great majority of our effort, should not be on pursuing

00:08:21.700 | political and legal and cultural support for behaviors and attitudes we want to see in

00:08:29.000 | our children and in our churches. That is a misplaced focus. I'm not saying there's

00:08:36.660 | no role for Christians in politics or legislatures where they can make their case for what they

00:08:45.980 | consider to be healthy for society. But I am saying that effort should never, never

00:08:55.620 | even come close to being the primary focus of pastors and parents. The primary focus

00:09:03.540 | should be to do what only the Bible and only the gospel and only the Holy Spirit and the

00:09:11.020 | truth and Jesus can do in transforming human beings into the kind of Christ-exalting, Spirit-dependent,

00:09:20.620 | God-glorifying people who freely choose not to use drugs, whether caffeine or alcohol

00:09:29.940 | or cannabis or cocaine or meth or heroin, not to use drugs to escape into a world where

00:09:37.380 | Christ is less clearly perceived and the Scriptures are less understood and precious and the Spirit

00:09:44.220 | is less personal and the glory of God is less satisfying and the way of righteousness is

00:09:49.220 | less defined and the path of obedience is less compelling. We want people, Christians,

00:09:56.220 | to freely reject anything that would put them in that kind of mindset. To be a Christian,

00:10:03.820 | a true Christian, is a very radical thing. It's a miraculous thing. It's a supernatural

00:10:11.300 | thing. It requires not a little bit of effort while we try to get the world on our side,

00:10:18.540 | which by definition is never going to happen. It requires the whole focus of the pastoral

00:10:25.180 | ministry, evangelizing and preaching and worshiping and counseling and teaching and setting radical

00:10:31.700 | examples for the people. It requires focused, Spirit-dependent, Bible-saturated efforts

00:10:38.100 | of parents to call down the miracle through their parenting and through the church of

00:10:44.580 | the creation of young people who are joyfully willing to be out of step with the world.

00:10:51.380 | So that's the message I think God is sending us in the destigmatization and normalization

00:11:01.020 | and legalization of behaviors and attitudes and drugs that we think are out of step with

00:11:08.540 | the gospel. It's a call to be the church and to be the home.

00:11:14.140 | Amen. Yes, we depend on a divine miracle within us to resist the world. Thank you, Pastor

00:11:20.700 | John. Thank you for joining us today. You can ask a question of your own, search our

00:11:23.860 | growing archive, or subscribe to the podcast, all at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. There

00:11:30.140 | you can find episode 77, recorded way back, I think in 2013, our first year.

00:11:36.140 | Well, why does God make some people attractive and he makes other people physically unattractive?

00:11:43.860 | God could make us all attractive. He doesn't. Why? It's a heartfelt question from a listener

00:11:48.780 | who struggles with this question, and we will start the week with it on Monday. I'm your

00:11:53.580 | host Tony Renke. We'll see you back here on the other side of the weekend. Thanks for

00:11:57.100 | listening. We'll see you then.

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The Church’s Calling in an Age of Recreational Pot

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