Marijuana, Weed, Mary Jane, Grass, Whatever, It's Not Good

Posted: Friday, July 30, 2010 by Morgan in
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So I was working the other day (converting THOUSANDS of 90s hip hop album art to JPEG format), and the guy I'm working for came over and started reminiscing about the cover I was working on, told me about the centrality of drugs in the hip hop industry, and warned me that one hit of crack would destroy my life. Just one. That's all it takes. After this conversation about drugs, it got me thinking about the issue of the legalization of marijuana. I knew I was against it, but I wasn't sure why exactly. I had a couple extra hours, so I did some research on the subject... Here's what I found.


The pro-legalization side focuses on downplaying the physical danger to the user of marijuana and other drugs, which isn't an incredibly persuasive argument for me since America is the so-called land of the free where we're free to do whatever we want, but we're also responsible to face the consequences. It's up to you if you want to start doing crack or heroin or whatever and completely destroy your life. Even so, 17,000 deaths every year are caused by illicit drug use, which is likely caused indirectly by marijuana. Beyond this, look at all the problems caused by alcohol and tobacco, both of which underwent a similar legal process. Tobacco-induced respiratory disease is among the leading causes of death in the US, and as I will discuss later, there is a huge correlation between alcohol and violent crime. How, I ask, can marijuana avoid or lessen the problems already inherent in our society because of recreational drugs?


What the pro-legalization side doesn't address is the effect of marijuana on other people and the tendency of marijuana users to move onto harder drugs. A huge amount of crime is directly related to drug use. 1.4 of 1.7 million American adults who are incarcerated have serious drug/alcohol problems. "Eighty-one percent of state inmates... committed substance offenses such as selling drugs or driving while intoxicated; were under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of their crime; committed a crime to get money to buy drugs; or had histories of regular illegal drug use, alcohol abuse or alcoholism." A chart I found in my research shows that a large majority (71-78%) of state and federal inmates have a history of using marijuana, and smaller percentages of those have histories of using harder drugs and alcohol. There is an undeniable connection between marijuana and crime.


While research has not proven that marijuana is a gateway drug biologically, but there IS evidence that it is a social and psychological gateway drug. That is, there isn't any chemical in marijuana that causes the brain to crave cocaine or LSD, but "because of its illegal status, cannabis users are more likely to be in situations which allow them to become acquainted with people who use and sell other illegal drugs." (and making it legal isn't really going to change that.) Saying marijuana isn't a gateway drug is like saying a teen guy who looks at the magazines that are right next to porn magazines isn't going to look at them.


Even without either of these arguments, there exists the legal issue of legalization.  Legalization brings with it the problems of regulation. Secondhand smoke with tobacco cigarettes is bad enough, but think about secondhand smoke from marijuana cigarettes. Imagine this, your neighbor lights up in his backyard and your kids are playing outside... The entire structure of smoking/anti-smoking laws would have to be rethought, which would take a huge bureaucracy and committees and tax dollars, because I obviously want to pay more taxes and have more laws to regulate something that I am completely against and that was illegal last year. There would have to be really strict guidelines and even stricter punishments for illegal production and use of marijuana too, not to mention all the stoned-in-public charges that will have to be dealt with by the police force (they're just trading one problem for another). 


Here's the bottom line, which I didn't come up with myself. It's really good and concise though, so I'm going to use it. Marijuana is a problem, that is apparent, but making something that is a crime legal isn't going to fix it. 


Now this post is full of statistics about drug usage and crime and prison and all sorts of inanimate figures like that, but we have to remind ourselves that this issue will affect PEOPLE. People who have addiction problems, whose addictions affect their economic lives, family lives, social lives, spiritual lives, and pretty much every other kind of life you can think of. The legalization of marijuana would make it that much easier for someone to get into the drug culture and possibly throw away a bright future or cause an already bleak life to be dragged down into complete oblivion. If nothing else, this law would be the number one enabler. Fight it.


Some Resources:

Reassessing the Marijuana Gateway Effect

Andrew R. Morral , Daniel F. McCaffrey & Susan M. Paddock

Drug Policy Research Center, RAND, Arlington, VA, USA

http://drugwarfacts.org/cms/?q=node/30#illicit

http://www.casacolumbia.org/articlefiles/379-Behind%20Bars.pdf



"For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer." Romans 13:3-4

Upside Down Kingdom

Posted: Thursday, July 29, 2010 by Morgan in
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[As a disclaimer, the topic I'm about to talk about is SO HUGE that I can't possibly address it in this post without writing a book at the same time. There have been books written on it (The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a good example), so I won't write another one. These are just some of my thoughts on the subject of Christian stewardship.]

As I was listening to a song today (called Upside Down Kingdom...go figure), I was reminded of a book by the same title written by Donald B. Kraybill, a leading scholar on the Anabaptism and Amish Studies. I read parts of this book in my Old Testament Survey class last semester. Okay, I only read one section of it one time, but the single chapter I read literally changed the course of my life. I only have a sense of  what I read, but the idea that was planted in my mind from that brief reading matured and became a clear course of action. The chapter was about the relationship between wealth and social justice and salvation. Before reading this chapter, I only had a very vague idea of what I would do with my future career when I got there: get a steady job at a great engineering firm, make a comfortably large amount of money to provide well for my family and get really nice cars (Acura TL Type-S as an everyday driver and a Lotus Elise/Subaru WRX STi for fun). 

Now that's great from the world's perspective and loosely follows the biblical imperative for fathers/husbands to provide for and protect their families, but in the back of my mind I knew that if that was the extent of my goal, it would really be meaningless. Families and marriages don't have the same meaning in eternity, every physical possession we have on this earth will burn, and wealth is shown all throughout the bible to be a major point of contention between the Christian and God, causing the Christian to become self-sufficient and worldly. It just didn't sit right with me, but I wasn't really looking for a solution because the sinful nature inside me liked the idea of being wealthy so that I could enjoy the pleasures of this world.

But after I read The Upside Down Kingdom, the dangers of wealth to the Christian and the importance of good stewardship became very apparent to me. The importance of these issues struck an inexplicably heavy blow on my heart. The chapter "Luxurious Poverty" addressed Jesus's teachings on wealth, which was all well and good, but many of you know that  raw theology is at best annoying to me, so I read further to see if any course of action to go with the theology existed. Sure enough, there was. It was all about good stewardship, living within your means, and various ways of tithing in the "jubilee spirit," a main theme that is present in the book.

Anyway, this section went into many examples of how to give responsibly and in the correct spirit. The specific example that really struck me and set a goal in motion was the idea of a graduated tithe, where, for example, a family establishes a basic budget of $30,000 per year and tithes 10% on that amount and then a 5% tithe is added for each thousand dollars of income above the basic $30 grand. "When the income reaches $48,000, all of the last thousand is given since the graduated tithe has jumped to 100%...Such a tithe embodies the jubilee spirit and nudges us in the direction of generous stewardship."

That idea stuck with me. The idea of having a steady, unchanging income and giving all the rest to my church and various effective ministries was (and still is) very attractive to me, so I decided to make that the goal for my career. I have seen the impact Christian organizations can have in the lives of young and old, the well-fed and the starving, the wealthy and the impoverished, but I have also seen some organizations cease to be effective because of a lack of funds. A desire was sparked in me to employ the graduated tithe system (or something like it) to provide the means for those ministries to go on. This way, I can strive to make as much money as I can for the purpose of advancing the kingdom. 

I could go on to delve into the issues of storing up treasures in heaven, the specific dangers of wealth, the dangers of legalism in tithing and the principle of "living within your means" as a loophole for extravagant living, and other things like that, but people would stop reading. Also, this is long enough as it is. Sure, this is an idea that I think will work for me, but it's not for everyone. It's really the heart that matters. Jesus sums it up quite nicely, so I'll give him the last word...

"For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Luke 12:34

P.S. If anyone is interested in hearing the song, I feel obligated to warn you that it's Christian hardcore metal... but if that doesn't rub you the wrong way, here's the information and a link: 

Upside Down Kingdom by As I Lay Dying http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBzBivZBRwY

Romans

Posted: Monday, July 26, 2010 by Morgan in
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I have recently finished studying Romans with a good friend from Michigan, so I'll be periodically posting just a few of my favorite things that God showed me as I was reading. 


But first, the story of how this arrangement came about. I had been struggling with reading the Bible for a long time. Honestly, it was boring to me. I couldn't really get into it at all and I was simply reading it out of sheer, almost blind obedience, which is not the way the Bible is meant to be read. It's the living, breathing, Word of God, and I was treating it like homework from a history textbook (most of you know how much I just LOVE history). I was talking to my mom about it and she encouraged me to find someone else I could study it with. It just so happened that I called my friend the next day and told him about that conversation. He said he was restarting Romans the next day and that I could join him. Even this seemingly insignificant coincidence of plans was directly from God. In the weeks that followed, God gave me the joy in reading his word that I have almost constantly been praying for over the past year or so. 

Anyway, here is a tiny bit from the first part of the first chapter. If I wrote much more, people would just stop reading my blog because it would get so long. Seriously, someone could write a book about this stuff.

Romans 1:18-32
This section is about the consequences of failure to honor God: "For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened." (R 1:21)

So God is obvious, and it isn't that man doesn't see God, it's that he tries to ignore him and worship the things of this world. Here's the scary part. God lets him. God hands him over to his sinful nature. He doesn't force man to be righteous, but lets him become all the depraved things Paul lists in verses 29-31. Man knows that these things are wrong, but he accepts them wholeheartedly and praises others who practice them. All this (envy, strife, maliciousness, invention of evil, hatred of God, ruthlessness, and deceit to name a few) comes from the root cause of not giving honor to God. It's a slippery slope, so don't forget who is the potter and who is the clay. 

I could go into some stuff about freewill vs. predestination here, but I'll save it for later. We'll come back to this section.

"For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding; he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the path of justice and watching over the ways of his saints." Proverbs 2:6-8

Wishes and Questions

Posted: Friday, July 23, 2010 by Morgan in
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A couple things tonight.


First, last night, as I was talking with a good friend, the question of wishes came up. Specifically, whether or not we would wish to change something in the past, including all the real life consequences of such a change. Would life really be any better if one significant thing that we desired was changed? Aren't the bad things in our lives part of the good things in our lives? Would it still be our life if we changed it? If someone had a regret in their past and chose to go back and erase it, would they not make the very same or only slightly different choice/mistake later without learning from it? If right now was the only moment that we could change something in our past without destroying the spacetime continuum, what would it be like? Would our knowledge or memories change? Would we know that anything was different? Would we feel the old regret slip away only to be replaced with another? 

As I thought about it more, the sovereign nature of God kept coming to the forefront of my mind. God has a perfect plan for everything. EVERYTHING. He allows and orchestrates every decision we make, guiding us into his perfect plan for us. Take this analogy, if you will: our lives are a delicious meal in the process of being cooked. Each part of the recipe may not be pleasant when it is added, but when it is mixed with everything else, it turns into a tasty and nourishing meal. If we decide we want to replace the olive oil with maple syrup, it's not going to taste right. Also, if we try to eat the meal before it's finished cooking, it's probably going to be fairly nasty and even dangerous. Like I have told one of my friends before, "God is cooking awesome sauce in your life right now, you will just have to wait to taste it." Patience, I think, is the lesson here.

So at first I decided I would formulate a change in the past that would not have any negative consequences, but now I think I'll just rest in God's plan and learn from the hard things in life. He can see the big picture, we can't.

Second, as I was talking to another of my good friends earlier this evening, the question of questions came up. We began talking about how to find things out by asking questions of people. There's a lot of information out there, we just have to be willing to ask the right questions to get at it. I realized that I often know what kind of information or knowledge I want to get, but I almost never know what questions to ask to get it. Sometimes, I think, you have to ask completely different and seemingly irrelevant questions to find the information you want. For example, if you asked someone what their philosophy of life was, I doubt you would get a coherent answer. Who formulates an answer to that question? "Oh yeah, I'm a neo-Platonic Nihilistic pantheist, but I also believe in original sin and karma." Mmhmm... You would probably have more luck asking about what books they like, what their family is like, what their priorities in life are, and what their ideal mode of transportation is. 

The point is, you can learn a lot about someone by asking questions, and not just questions like, "So how was your day?" and "What are you doing this weekend?" and "What classes are you taking next semester?" Questions that matter, for example "Are you happy?" and "How serious are you about your faith?" and "How do you get along with your family?" 

To recap:

Have faith in God's work in your life. He knows what he's doing, you don't.

and

People matter, so ask questions.

"Do not be deceived, God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please the sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the spirit, from the spirit will reap eternal life." Galatians 6:7-8

Confidence

Posted: Wednesday, July 21, 2010 by Morgan in
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Since I've had an hour-long drive to work lately, I decided to listen to Ravi Zacharias, a really awesome Christian apologist, while I drove out to Newberg. The lecture I listened to was called The Spurious Glitter of Pantheism. Now, aside from the fact that I didn't know what spurious meant and had to look it up, I found Dr. Zacharias' insights to be clear, valuable, and applicable. Pantheism, and specifically Hinduism, is inextricable connected to culture. "Religion is the essence of culture. Culture is the dress of religion. Which means, when you are talking to an Indian, you cannot separate his culture from his religion." 


Here it is, short and sweet. Hinduism is based on the fact that all life is completely unified and that mankind is evolving to attain the ultimate impersonal divinity. This unity is so pervasive that some Hindus will not even pray because it denotes an individual being praying to another, albeit very different, being. It has only two doctrines that are not negotiable: reincarnation and karma. Hinduism is a very open religion, and one will often find that Hindus will tolerate almost any religion and trade facets of their own for others in order to be accepting. Most orthodox Hindus (whatever that means), when confronted with Christianity, will say that Christians are right in a sense because they were born Christian and are believing in and following something. They will also say that Christians are never living their final life, that there will be at least one more round of reincarnation. If you're interested in this lecture series, here's the link: http://www.rzim.org/resources/listen/justthinking.aspx?archive=1&i=50

Anyway, this is all very interesting, but let's get to the point. As I was thinking about karma and other iterations of works-based salvation, I was struck with how much they leave a person wondering if they've "made it" yet. There's no mechanism for determining how good is good enough. There's no way of measuring how many and what kind of good deeds outweigh the bad. Does volunteering once at a homeless shelter cancel out swearing at stupid drivers? If not, how many times do you have to volunteer? How long do you have to volunteer? Does it depend on how many times you cussed? Does it matter what you said? The point is, I thought about the absolute confidence I have in Christ's atonement for me. "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified and with the mouth one confesses and is saved." (Romans 10:9-10)

Salvation through belief in Christ is simple, and at the same time it satisfies a right vs. wrong system if you need to think about it that way. It all started with the sacrificial system in the Old Testament, where sin was paid for by blood. Certain sacrifices paid for certain sins, and this was the way to be justified (sort of, just bear with me). Every sin. Every SINGLE ONE, either intentional or unintentional, had to be paid for. If you don't pay for your sin, you're done. It's as simple as that. BUT, when Christ died, it was such a huge sacrifice that it covered every sin and replaced it with His own perfect righteousness. Every SINGLE ONE, either intentional or unintentional. 

The gospel makes sense. There's a standard. There's a system. There are clearly delineated requirements for salvation. I have confidence in Christ's ability to cover for my sins, and I rejoice and marvel in that. It's love and grace though and through, and I'm seeing it more and more every day.

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes..." Romans 1:16