I want to answer one very simple question tonight: “What should we as Christians think about marijuana?” Hold that thought, as I relay a story to you. 

I heard recently from a couple about their vacation to a Caribbean country. And they told me this humorous and ironic experience they had there. When they were entering the town on the island where their resort was, there were these two signs they passed. And then there was a local from that island. The first sign said, “NO FOREIGN CURRENCY USED INCLUDING US DOLLARS.” The second sign said, “THE BUYING AND SELLING OF MARIJUANA PRODUCTS IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED.” And then there was a local islander just past those signs, selling marijuana for US Dollars. 

I recognize today that I’m basically playing the part of one of those signs. I’m probably going to be ignored by the vast majority of this world and maybe even vilified by some. And a savvier person might ask themselves, “Is this really worth it?” “Is this the issue that I want to take a stand on?” “I mean, it’s not the deity of Christ. It’s not the Trinity. And neither is it marriage or sexuality or gender or human dignity or the authority of the Scriptures.”

And I’ll be honest with you, I can’t get that exercised about genetically modified fruits and vegetables. I can’t. Maybe some of you can? Maybe some of you will change my mind on that later? But I don’t want to investigate what the Bible says about genetically modified fruits and vegetables. I don’t think there’s much there on that. 

And I can’t get that exercised either about video games, or teenage obesity, or Harry Potter. From my perspective, those topics are hard to build a case against biblically. 

But what about marijuana? Is this topic worthy of a “Walk the Talk” seminar? Is it worthy of my energy to study up on it and discuss what the Bible says about it? Yes, it is! And by the time that I’m done today, I hope that you will understand why.  

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And I want to start here. The Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians, “‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things build up” (10:23, ESV). The Holman Christian Standard Bible says it this way, “Everything is permissible,” but not everything is helpful. “Everything is permissible,” but not everything builds up.” 

Here’s a very real question that we need to ask as Christians. Does cannabis build up? Is it helpful to us? Even if it is “permissible,” is it beneficial? 

We used to say marijuana is not legal, and that’s the end of the story. Well that’s before it became legal in Colorado first, and then in Illinois, the state I used to live in. Technically it’s still federally illegal. But it’s so ubiquitous and unenforced in modern American culture (even in Texas), we honestly need a more comprehensive answer to the question: “What should we as Christians think about marijuana?” 

And in that category of “permissible” but not “beneficial,” write these down as six myths about marijuana. I want to demythologize the narrative that surrounds cannabis in our country:

Six Myths about Marijuana:

1) Marijuana is harmless 

Two books have been especially helpful for me in my research on this topic. The first book is a book called Smokescreen by Kevin Sabet. Kevin is a public policy expert and founder of an organization called SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana). Sabet’s book is damning on the Marijuana industry and the political forces that are working to promote it. 

The second book is a book entitled Tell Your Children: The Truth about Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence. Before you speak positively about the legalization of marijuana to your kids or to the public, read those books. It may change your mind about the public danger of marijuana. 

That second book is written by a former New York Times journalist named Alex Berenson, who had covered the pharmaceutical industry for years. Berenson was initially ambivalent about the legalization of marijuana, but then he started doing some digging, and he found a correlation between marijuana, mental illness (specifically schizophrenia), and violent behavior. 

This all started for Berenson with a conversation he had with his wife, when they were discussing a horrific crime that took place in New York involving children. And just sort of casually, Berenson’s wife, who is a psychiatrist and a mental health professional, said “Of course he was high [you know], been smoking pot his whole life!” To which Berenson responded, “Of course? What do you mean, ‘of course’?” And his wife told him “Yeah, of course!” “In all cases like this, the assailants smoke weed.” That conversation is what led Berenson to research and write his book about the link between marijuana and violence. 

Berenson also details in that book the cover up in this country that has largely been driven by a powerful cannabis lobby. In places like the UK, marijuana use has plunged because research has proliferated in other countries about the link between marijuana and violence. In our country, that research has been silenced or obscured, because there’s this driving push to commodify and commercialize cannabis for economic benefit. 

One of the things that people are unaware of is that the modern-day drug that is called weed is so different from the drug that first hit the streets in the 1960s, it really should be called something different. The marijuana that people smoked in the 1960s and 70s mainly came from Mexico, and it contained about 1% THC. Berenson calls it “cheap weed” and the “cannabis equivalent to near-beer.” THC is the chemical component in marijuana that makes you high. So at most, people just got a small buzz from the drug. Today marijuana has been altered to increase the THC content to 20 or 25% and sometimes higher. So in some cases, the drug is 25 times more potent than it used to be. 

And this is problematic for parents who maybe smoked a few joints in their teenage years or college years and nothing bad happened. No big deal. They never got hooked on it and never had problems. So they don’t see that it’s a big deal if their kids smoke a little weed. But it’s not the same weed! And so the dangers are more pronounced today, than they were when I was a teenager or when my parents were teenagers. 

And what’s scary is how unregulated the whole enterprise is. We’ve got this rush to legalize marijuana and nobody is regulating how it should be marketed, how it should be labeled, how much THC is too much, etc. We have stronger regulations on milk production in this country than marijuana production!   

Additionally, Big Cannabis is incentivized to get the youngest groups of people hooked as heavy users for as long as possible. That’s the best way to maximize profits. And so the marijuana industry is even now producing “treats” such as “Stoner Patch Dummies,” “Fruity Pebbles Magic Cereal Bars,” and “Medicated Sour Skittles.” 

Here’s a second myth about marijuana. 

2) Marijuana isn’t addictive

Now you might put an asterisk on this one. Because there are plenty of people that have smoked weed and didn’t become addicts. And there are other drugs that are far more addictive than marijuana. I concede that. Heroin, cocaine, crack, meth, and opioids like OxyContin and Fentanyl… these are much more addictive than marijuana. 

But the myth that circulates that marijuana isn’t addictive just isn’t true. Plenty of evidence suggests that it’s extremely addictive for those who have repeatedly used it or excessively used it. It’s like alcohol in that way. Once you take occasional users or even one-time users out of your sample, then you see how habit-forming it is. It’s both physically and psychologically addictive.

The following statement is from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “Marijuana use can lead to the development of problem use, known as a marijuana use disorder, which takes the form of addiction in severe cases. Recent data suggest that 30 percent of those who use marijuana may have some degree of marijuana use disorder. People who begin using marijuana before the age of 18 are four to seven times more likely to develop a marijuana use disorder than adults.”

The truth about this has been obscured by the cannabis lobby in America. But I think too that people who want to legalize marijuana have been willfully naïve about the dangers. It’s ironic to me how we live in a world where commercials are shown on TV about the dangers of cigarette smoke. Cigarette smoking has been roundly criticized and removed from public establishments like restaurants and work-places. The links between cigarette smoking and lung cancer are clear and warning labels are everywhere. 

And Cigarette companies in my childhood were demonized for obfuscating the facts about the health risks involved with cigarette smoking. And yet today, there’s this massive push to legalize and normalize marijuana. That just doesn’t make sense to me. I wouldn’t encourage people to start smoking cigarettes. But for the record, I feel much safer and more comfortable seeing a person smoke a nicotine cigarette next to me than a marijuana joint. One of those is a mind-altering drug that could lead to psychotic behavior and paranoid delusions. The other one isn’t.  

Write this down as a third myth about marijuana. 

3) Marijuana has curative properties  

The cannabis lobby has worked very hard to make medical marijuana legal and acceptable. That was part of their strategy from the beginning. First legalize medical marijuana. Then decriminalize marijuana use. Then legalize recreational marijuana use. Their strategy was fantastic to be honest, and included some big-name backers like George Soros and George Zimmer, the founder of Men’s Warehouse, who has been a long-time marijuana user. More recently marijuana has been encouraged by celebrities like Kevin Durant, Jonah Hill, Whoopi Goldberg, Snoop Dog, Willie Nelson, and others. 

And one of the theories that they began circulating was that marijuana could cure diseases like cancer or dementia or even irritable bowel syndrome. The problem with that is that marijuana has never been proven to have curative properties. And people talk about marijuana like the Greek father from “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” talks about Windex. “You got arthritis? Spray some Windex on it. You got psoriasis? Spray some Windex on it. You got IBS? Spray some Windex on it. It cures everything.” People talk like that about cannabis. People talk like that about CBD too, which is only slightly less ridiculous.

Here’s a quote from Berenson’s book on that: “Hundreds of thousands of biomedical researchers worldwide spend their lives trying to figure out how diseases damage the body and how to stop them. Why would a single plant [marijuana] treat conditions as different as dementia, irritable bowel syndrome, and cancer? Even if it did, why would it treat them better than compounds that scientists have discovered and refined over the last century? We don’t pretend that garlic or nightshade cure diseases better than more modern medicines, so why do we do so for marijuana?”  

And the most that marijuana can do is alleviate pain. And this has been my argument for years – if marijuana does alleviate pain, why not make it go through drug evaluations with the FDA like every other drug on the market? Why not encapsulate it in a pharmaceutical and make people take it orally. Why smoke it? Who smokes medicine? It’s inefficient to do that. You are unnecessarily ingesting carcinogens and other harmful things. What other medicines do you smoke? “Here you go, Mr. Caffey, Here’s your antibiotic. Just take this home wrap it in flammable paper, light it on fire, and smoke it into your lungs!” That’s ridiculous. None of us do that. 

I have known, and maybe you have known for years, that the medical marijuana campaign has been nothing more than a ruse by marijuana advocates to make pot more acceptable and legitimate in the eyes of the public. And you know what? It has worked. It has worked fabulously! 

In 1999, 73% of Americans supported medical marijuana usage. That number used to be like 20%. But in 1999, it was 73%. Today it’s closer to 90%. 90% of Americans support medical marijuana usage even though it has never passed an FDA trial like every other medicine in America has to pass before it is brought to market, and even though a majority of doctors in America won’t prescribe it! And it has never been proven to have curative properties, and its effectiveness as a pain reliever is dubious according to some studies (not even as effective as Tylenol or ibuprofen). 

According to a recent Gallup Poll, 65% of Americans now say smoking pot is morally acceptable. And now something like 60% of Americans support the legalization of recreational marijuana. I just got to say, we’ve been duped, people. We’ve been duped like Americans were duped in the twentieth century about tobacco and nicotine, and we don’t really seem to care that much about it. 

Write this down as a fourth myth about marijuana. 

4) Marijuana is a solution for the opioid crisis

This is the most sinister of the arguments for the legalization of marijuana. Berenson details in that book that marijuana use has actually led to higher opioid deaths in North America. There’s a stronger correlation between opioid deaths in America and Canada, than the cannabis lobby wants to acknowledge. And that’s not a new thing. Marijuana use was highly correlated to cocaine and cocaine deaths in the 1980s and 1990s. 

That’s why I grew up in the “Just Say No” era of drug policy. That campaign made a lasting impact on me and many others. Marijuana use actually went down from the time period that my dad was in high school to the time that I was in high school. But the numbers have been rising for the last twenty-five years. 

Berenson, Alex. Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence . Free Press. Kindle Edition.  

It’s funny how the narrative has changed around marijuana. People use to say that “marijuana is a gateway drug.” But then people started to say that “‘marijuana is a gateway drug’ is a myth.” But if you look at the evidence closely, it actually shows that “marijuana is a gateway drug is a myth” is actually a myth. Let me say it a little differently: Marijuana is a gateway drug. We had it right at the beginning! 

People like to say, “Oh, those people who believe marijuana is a gateway drug are naïve.” And maybe that’s true in some cases. People who smoke a joint or two in high school or college aren’t likely to do harder drugs or get into worse stuff. But for those who use marijuana regularly or get hooked on it, it very much is a gateway drug to other things. And those who say that it’s not, are actually the ones who are naïve.  

Write this down as a fifth myth about marijuana. 

5) Marijuana legalization will eliminate black-market demand

Here’s another sinister argument. In states where marijuana has been legalized, the black-market demand has gone up not down. Let me say that again. In states where marijuana has been legalized (Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and Alaska), black market demand for cannabis has gone up. [There’s not enough research yet in Illinois and other states to prove this]. 

Why is that the case? Why did that happen? Because here’s why—nobody likes paying taxes… not even weed-smokers! And when you commodify something and market it as a legal product, you’ve got to pay the piper. You’ve got to pay Uncle Sam. And sometimes Uncle Sam makes business difficult. Don’t amen that. But it’s true. So it’s easier to just grow it and sell it illegally. I heard Al Mohler say recently that it’s hard to be a gangster and a mafioso in today’s world because the US Government keeps horning in on your business.

Write this down as a sixth myth about marijuana. 

6) Marijuana is not a public hazard 

In his book, Berenson reports that all four states that legalized marijuana in 2014–15 (Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and Alaska) have seen sharp increases in murders and aggravated assaults. Also there is data that has emerged in Texas, a place that has a relatively low rate of marijuana use compared to other states (only 1 in 50 Texans are daily marijuana users). But despite those low rates, a recent report has shown that of all the child deaths from abuse or neglect in Texas in 2017, authorities found that one-third of the perpetrators were using cannabis at the time of the death.

In this country, we’ve worked incredibly hard to reduce alcohol related deaths, especially deaths that involve drunk driving. I think about the work of organizations like MADD (Mothers against Drunk Driving). But now we are unleashing a mind-altering drug that impairs cognitive skills into our country without any real warnings about the dangers of impaired driving or impaired working. 

Berenson mentions in his book that in Denver, Colorado, where pot has been legal since 2014, a popular radio show conducted a survey that showed that 15% of people in the state had reported using marijuana on the job. 15%! Can I just tell you right now? That is terrifying!  

I have a good friend who used to work as an executive for a company in Decatur, Illinois. And she kept trying to hire for her pharmaceutical company. And she had several jobs listed. Good jobs. Good-paying jobs that didn’t even require a college education. And yet, she couldn’t find anyone who could pass a drug test.  

And I did a little investigative reporting in the city of Decatur afterwards. And I asked executives and other higher-ups how important it was for them to have drug-free employees. And I’ll just tell you, if you smoke weed, your job prospects will be limited in that city and in the city of San Antonio too. If you can’t pass a simple drug test, you won’t be gainfully employed. 

Cannabis may eventually be legal even in Texas. But is it beneficial for your career development? I don’t think so. Employers don’t want to hire pot-heads. Nobody on TV is going to tell you that. Politicians won’t even tell you that. JB Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, won’t tell you that. He ran on a pro-legalization of marijuana ticket. John Boehner won’t tell you that. He used to be the Republican Speaker of the House. He used to oppose the legalization of marijuana, but now he sits on the board of a cannabis company. He tells people, “My thinking on cannabis has evolved.” I just think that’s shameful! John Boehner won’t tell you this, but I’ll tell you. If you want to be gainfully employed with a good paying job, you better not smoke weed. 

Some of you might say, “I’m gonna be a rock-star, Pastor Tony. I don’t need to worry about that.” Well if you think you think you’re going to be a rock-star, you probably should smoke weed. Because you are already in a state of delusion.

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So enough with the myths. Let’s get to the truth of God’s Word. Write these down. I’ll give you four truths concerning marijuana from the Bible. 

Four Truths from the Bible:

1) The Scriptures forbid intoxication

Now this is an argument from analogy. I admit that. The Bible prohibits drunkenness. And my argument here is that if God doesn’t want you to be intoxicated with alcohol, why would he want you to be “intoxicated” with marijuana? 

Isaiah 5:11 — Woe to those who rise early in the morning, that they may run after strong drink, who tarry late into the evening as wine inflames them!

You might say, “Pastor Tony I don’t get drunk on wine. I get drunk on beer, so I’m good.” Does that work? “I get drunk on Jose Cuervo tequila. So, I’m good!” Is that true? Would Paul accept that argument? Of course not! It’s ridiculous! 

So to say, in a similar vein, “you know, Pastor Tony, the Bible never expressly forbids the smoking of marijuana. So it’s okay.” I would respond to that by saying, “Are you sure that the God who said ‘don’t get drunk on wine’ would be okay with you getting high on weed? I don’t think so!” You could use the same argument for cocaine! Or heroin! Or meth! I don’t think that argument works. And when God says, “don’t do something,” he is trying to protect us. I don’t want to play fast and loose with that. I don’t want to think, “How can I wiggle out of that prohibition.”

Several years ago, in Illinois, I preached a sermon series called “Kicking Legalism to the Curb.” It was a series from the NT book of Galatians. Well during that series, I got an email from this person I had never met. And here’s what he wrote. I think he was being sarcastic: “I would like a prayer session for legalism [sic] of marijuana. God made it, so its [sic] perfectly fine. Oh and I would like a prayer for open-mindedness, of which most religious people are not.”  

So let’s just take this person seriously here. Maybe some of you have asked this question. Maybe you’ve heard an argument where people have said, “Well the Bible says that God gave us every seed-bearing plant to enjoy as food (Gen 1:29). That includes marijuana. So ipso-facto why not enjoy marijuana?” You guys ever been asked that question or maybe thought about that yourself? 

Here’s my answer. Yes, God created all seed-bearing plants for us to enjoy. Marijuana is a seed-bearing plant. But God also created grapes. And he still told us in the post-fall era to not get drunk on wine. 

Also, let me say this. Genesis 1 is the passage that people quote that speaks about seed-bearing plants. Well Genesis 1 is followed by the fall of man in Genesis 3. And Genesis 3 is a real game-changer. Genesis 3 led to the corruption of our world. So it’s a dangerous argument to say now that “God gave us all seed-bearing plants, and all seed-bearing plants are good to eat.” Cyanide comes from seed-bearing plants. Heroin comes from poppy seeds. I don’t hear anybody saying, “Well cyanide comes from a seed-bearing plant. God gave us seed-bearing plants. Let’s ingest some cyanide.” That’s the kind of thing that Jim Jones would say to his cult followers just before he encouraged them to drink Kool-Aid. 

From what I read this last week, 3% of wild mushrooms are toxic. They can cause liver failure, intestinal pain, and even death. Some of those mushrooms could be growing in your backyard. Would you take that risk? “Chow down, kids! God gave us these mushrooms to enjoy, so let’s eat!” 

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Write this down as #2. 

2) The Scriptures tell us to be sober-minded

1 Peter 4:7 – The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.

1 Peter 5:8 – Be sober-minded; be watchful.

1 Thess 5:6–7 – So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night.

Listen, this is an inference-based argument, but I’m just going to say it. I’ve never heard somebody say, “You see that guy over there smoking weed. He sure is sober-minded about his surroundings. He sure is vigilant.” Nobody has ever said that. 

When I was a teenager, I worked as a lifeguard for this public pool in Austin, Texas. And I worked with these two college students who were basically pot-heads. And yet they both told me how devout they were as Christians. They tried to convince me of this. It was like Cheech and Chong trying to convince me that they were following Jesus. 

And these two guys were 20-somethings. 24 or 25? They were still in college, which should tell you something. They were working with teenagers as lifeguards… that should tell you something too! They would show up high to work. They would teach some of the other teenagers I worked with how to get high. They would tell me about their “Bible studies” where they would smoke weed and then study the Bible and have these amazing revelations from the Lord. 

And you know back then, I wasn’t Pastor Tony. I was just a dopey teenager trying to figure out life as a Christian. But even back then, even as a young Christian, I knew that these guys were posers. They weren’t really following Christ. 

And I had enough discernment to know that the Holy Spirit inside of me that was telling me “That’s not right. What they are doing, Tony, is not what you should be doing”… I knew enough to know that the Holy Spirit inside of me was not inside of them. And I didn’t want anything to do with their brand of “Christianity.”

Galatians 5:21 – Envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 – Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. 

Can a weed-smoking sinner get saved? Absolutely. Some of you might be breathing a sigh of relief after that statement! Whew! But can an unrepentant weed-smoker get saved? Can a serial weed-smoker be saved? I don’t think so. I don’t know how to square that with 1 Corinthians 6. “Such were some of you!” The “were” is past tense.

You know as Christians we are called to be sober-minded and vigilant concerning the return of Christ. Not half-baked. Not stoned. Not blazed. Not indulging our desire for escapism or altering our state of consciousness. The Bible tells us to be alert. The Bible tells us to be vigilant. The Bible tells us to be watchful, because at any moment Christ might return. 

Jesus said this in Matthew 24. He said, “[B]e ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (24:44). He said, “Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes” (46). And then he said this in his parable of the wicked servant. “But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (24:46-51). You might say, “I’m not getting drunk with drunkards, Pastor Tony. I’m just getting high with my friends.” You want to take that chance when Christ returns? 

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Write this down as #3. 

3) The Scriptures tell us that a Christian’s body is the temple of the Holy Spirit 

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 – Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. 

Think of your bodies as like the Tabernacle of the OT where God abided among the Israelites. Several times in the OT, God filled the Tabernacle (later the Temple) with the smoke of his presence. It was so thick at one point, that the priests couldn’t minister there (2 Chr 5:14). God’s presence was so glorious and weighty and overwhelming, that people were overcome by it. 

That’s you, Christian! You are the temple of God, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit lives inside of you. Think of your temple as filled with the holy smoke of God’s presence. Why would you ever let profane marijuana smoke into your body if that’s the case? Why would you ever let your temple be tainted by the presence of something so demeaning? Is God’s presence meant to compete with pot? Is God’s temple meant to be stoned? Is God’s temple meant to be inebriated by something unholy like that? God forbid! 

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And finally, here’s a fourth truth from the Bible. 

4) The Scriptures tell us to be different from the world

1 Peter 4:3-5 –For 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 in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.

I know that some people might object to the correlation of alcohol with marijuana (or drunkenness with getting high). But I think the correlation works. The word for “drunkenness,” broadly speaking, means “intoxication.” It means connotatively a “lack of sobriety.” And that’s just as possible for cannabis as it is for booze. 

In fact, it’s more possible. And some people might conclude that if we compare alcohol to marijuana, can’t we say that casual use of marijuana is equivalent to the casual drinking of alcohol? Isn’t the use of alcohol in the Bible? Didn’t Jesus drink wine? 

The problem with that, though, is that marijuana use is not typically associated with casually eating or drinking. Kevin Vanhoozer says it this way: “Note the difference between drinking alcohol and smoking pot: a glass of wine complements food but doesn’t result in intoxication, whereas the whole point of consuming cannabis for recreational purposes is to get ‘high.’”

People don’t eat marijuana for the taste. From what I hear, it tastes horrible. People don’t add it to brownies or other edibles because it enhances flavor. People ingest it or smoke it, because it has intoxicating properties. And with the high amount of THC content, that doesn’t take much. 

Joe Carter says the following in a TGC article, “For marijuana, however, a much lower dosage is needed to induce a state of intoxication. Studies show that intoxication occurs at the ingestion of less than 7 mg of THC (the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana). That is approximately the equivalent to four puffs of a marijuana cigarette.” 

You might say, “Well what if I only puff three times, Pastor Tony?” “What if I only puff two times?” What if I just do like Bill Clinton? ‘I didn’t inhale!’” Look, at some point, you got to just say, why am I trying to get as close to what may be labeled a “sin” as possible and still get away with it? Just avoid it. Be different from the world.

When I was in High School, I read that book Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. It’s not a cheery book, and it’s not a book for young kids. It’s a science fiction book about a dystopian future where the government takes over the lives of human beings. Children are produced in a science lab and predetermined for their future vocations. And they are conditioned as they grow up in “nurseries” to love certain things and hate other things. It’s a terrifying dystopian future. But it’s just a little too close for comfort in our current society. 

Huxley wrote that book in 1932 almost a hundred years ago. And the humans in that book live a life of complete self-indulgence. They are sexually promiscuous. There’s no such thing as marriage or fidelity. There’s no such thing as sexual purity. And whenever someone feels even the slightest bit unhappy or distraught, they take this drug called “soma” and it alters their state of consciousness and they are happy again… sort of. And the people in that book are lulled into a state of brainless, receptive subservience to the state.

I recently reread that book. And I remember thinking to myself as I read, “This will never be possible completely as long as we have Christians who are obedient to Christ.” Aldous Huxley wouldn’t agree with me. He was an atheist. And he didn’t write Brave New World as a positive take on the future world. He wrote it as a warning. But I think as long as we have Christians who are swimming upstream, as long as we have Christians who are going against the flow and are “brave” in the new world, we can avoid a future like that. And I want to be that kind of Christian.  

Romans 12:2 – Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. 

We, as Christians, are the counterculture now. So do not be conformed to this world.