Pastor Jamal Bryant of Atlanta’s New Birth Missionary Baptist Church has announced his plan to grow marijuana on the church property as an outreach. The church is “the largest land-owning Black church in America.” He said he is looking for male congregants that “smell like weed” (“Megachurch Pastor,” Relevant, Dec. 9, 2022). He says, “So if the guy, Black boy, in Bankhead said, ‘They growing weed at the church? Where do I join?’ I don’t need no pamphlet for him.” So, Pastor Jamal wants to use marijuana as a church promotion! This is beyond dumb, even if marijuana were legal in Georgia, which it is not (cultivating marijuana for any reason is a felony offense). Marijuana is not a harmless drug. Proponents of recreational marijuana typically ignore proven dangers such as addiction, psychosis, marijuana as a gate-way drug, long-term effects on learning, cognition, and personality, amotivational syndrome (lethargy and loss of interest in achievement), bronchitis and respiratory infections, and increased risk of cardiovascular disease. There is a long line of evidence that marijuana is not an innocent relaxation drug. I know this all too well, having been a drug user before I was saved, beginning with my Army tour in Vietnam in 1970-71. Marijuana is a psychoactive drug with hallucinogenic properties which can mess with the depths of an individual’s soul. It affects people differently, but depression, intense anxiety, and paranoia are common side effects, and acute psychosis is not infrequent. This was proven in a study published in the Lancet in March 2019. The rush to legalize marijuana is the fruit of the rock & roll pop culture, the heart and soul of which is the anti-God philosophy of “live as you please.” It is the product of a filthy entertainment industry, apostate Christianity, an educational system devoted to moral relativism, a society that celebrates unrestrained self-expression, and the gross lack of wisdom typically reflected in mainstream media reporting. God’s command that His people be “sober” is repeated 12 times in the New Testament Epistles. It means to be in control of one’s mind and spirit so that nothing but God, is in charge. “Sober” is the opposite of being under the influence of alcohol or marijuana or other mind-control drugs.
(Friday Church News Notes, December 23, 2022, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)
