slimvictor
Bluelight Crew
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- Dec 29, 2008
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The Rev. Pat Robertson says America should legalize marijuana. Would Jesus agree?
Msnbc.com put that question to a few theologians and religion experts, and the answer is … decidedly hazy.
Robertson, the outspoken Christian evangelist and host of “The 700 Club,” made national headlines this week when he told The New York Times that pot should be decriminalized and treated like alcohol because the government’s war on drugs has failed miserably and is costing taxpayers billions of dollars.
“I’ve never used marijuana and I don’t intend to, but it’s just one of those things that I think: this war on drugs just hasn’t succeeded,” he told the newspaper.
Scholars disagree on whether the Bible lays down the law on use of mind-altering drugs such as marijuana, also known as cannabis.
"It’s not so simple that you can just go to the Scriptures and say, 'Hey, that (passage) says marijuana should be illegal,' or 'that says marijuana should be legal.' There is no such passage," says Father Thomas Reese, S.J., senior fellow at Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.
Some pro-pot Christians refer to Genesis 1:29 and interpret it to mean God does not frown on ingesting plants such as marijuana:
And God said, Behold, I have given you every plant bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, which has seed in its fruit; to you it shall be for food.
(...)
Carl A.P. Ruck, professor of classical studies at Boston University and co-author of “Apples of Apollo: Pagan and Christian Mysteries of the Eucharist,” contends there’s evidence biblical figures used cannabis as an ingredient in holy incense and anointing oil, as well as medicinally.
He says cannabis was widely cultivated throughout early Christian times, and contends Jesus himself used it. Jesus’ anointment with chrism, a cannabis-based oil, may have caused his spiritual visions, he adds.
“Residues of cannabis, moreover, have been detected in vessels from Judea and Egypt in a context indicating its medicinal, as well as visionary, use. Jesus is described by the apostle Mark as casting out demons and healing by the use of this holy chrism,” Ruck wrote in a 2003 newspaper column titled "Was there a whiff of cannabis about Jesus?” “Earlier, from the time of Moses until the later prophet Samuel, holy anointing oil was used by the shamanic Levite priesthood to receive the ‘revelations of the Lord.’ The chosen ones were drenched in this potent cannabis oil.”
cont at
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2...-for-legalizing-marijuana-what-would-jesus-do
Msnbc.com put that question to a few theologians and religion experts, and the answer is … decidedly hazy.
Robertson, the outspoken Christian evangelist and host of “The 700 Club,” made national headlines this week when he told The New York Times that pot should be decriminalized and treated like alcohol because the government’s war on drugs has failed miserably and is costing taxpayers billions of dollars.
“I’ve never used marijuana and I don’t intend to, but it’s just one of those things that I think: this war on drugs just hasn’t succeeded,” he told the newspaper.
Scholars disagree on whether the Bible lays down the law on use of mind-altering drugs such as marijuana, also known as cannabis.
"It’s not so simple that you can just go to the Scriptures and say, 'Hey, that (passage) says marijuana should be illegal,' or 'that says marijuana should be legal.' There is no such passage," says Father Thomas Reese, S.J., senior fellow at Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.
Some pro-pot Christians refer to Genesis 1:29 and interpret it to mean God does not frown on ingesting plants such as marijuana:
And God said, Behold, I have given you every plant bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, which has seed in its fruit; to you it shall be for food.
(...)
Carl A.P. Ruck, professor of classical studies at Boston University and co-author of “Apples of Apollo: Pagan and Christian Mysteries of the Eucharist,” contends there’s evidence biblical figures used cannabis as an ingredient in holy incense and anointing oil, as well as medicinally.
He says cannabis was widely cultivated throughout early Christian times, and contends Jesus himself used it. Jesus’ anointment with chrism, a cannabis-based oil, may have caused his spiritual visions, he adds.
“Residues of cannabis, moreover, have been detected in vessels from Judea and Egypt in a context indicating its medicinal, as well as visionary, use. Jesus is described by the apostle Mark as casting out demons and healing by the use of this holy chrism,” Ruck wrote in a 2003 newspaper column titled "Was there a whiff of cannabis about Jesus?” “Earlier, from the time of Moses until the later prophet Samuel, holy anointing oil was used by the shamanic Levite priesthood to receive the ‘revelations of the Lord.’ The chosen ones were drenched in this potent cannabis oil.”
cont at
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2...-for-legalizing-marijuana-what-would-jesus-do
