A Pastor Is Promoting The Spiritual Side Of Marijuana
A pastor is promoting the spiritual side of Marijuanabecause aside from aiding in the treatment of bodily ailments of the pastor, the plant influenced the way he prayed, encouraging him to pay attention to and follow the voice he perceived speaking to Him.
The Royal National Society (RNS) Craig Grosswas 36 years old when he took marijuana for the first time. The Christianentrepreneur and evangelist who grew up hearing about the dangers of cannabis had to make a mental leap to try medical marijuana because he was suffering from health conditions he couldn't seem to shake and was reeling emotionally from the death of his father. But once he did, he discovered that it had an unexpected impact on his lifein unexpected ways.
“It’s like a teacher,” Gross, a pastor is promoting the spiritual side of marijuana, told Religion NewsService in a recent phone call. “I’m realizing … I needed to slow down a bit. And when you slow down a bit, you start to see things a little bit more.”
Christian Cannabis Brand
However, in 2019, he made the decision to concentrate on developing a cannabis brand that would be targeted particularly at Christians. It is the missionof his new company, Christian Cannabis, to not only sell marijuana to Christians but to also encourage people to use marijuana in order to strengthen their spiritual relationships. You should include it as part of your daily prayerand worship routine.
And that can assist you in connecting with God in a deep and profound way," according to the company's website, which includes a "spiritual" link on its homepage in addition to "recreational" and "medical" options. Christian Cannabis is being promoted by Pastor Craig Gross.
Cannabis was used as incense by the ancient Assyrians, Egyptians, and Hebrews while participating in mystic dance rituals. Individuals associated with the Rastafarian movement, a religious organization that began in Jamaica during the 1930s and considers marijuana to be a vital part of its history— a means of getting closer to God — are perhaps best recognized for their usage of marijuana.
Beginning in the 1960s, new ministries oriented toward the ingestion of marijuana as a sacrament arose, according to Cozad, who described it as an “underground movement of people who understood that drugs could be extremely helpful in helping one step out of the mundane world into the sacred.”
As an example, the Churchof the Universe, which began in 1969 and took inspiration from Christian Scriptureand other sources, smokes marijuana during services. THC Ministries and other cannabis-related organizations, such as the Church of Cognizance, which was founded in Arizona in 1991, and the Hawai'i Ministryof Cannabis Sacrament, also known as THC Ministry, which was founded in 2000 have all faced raids, arrests, and imprisonment for their leaders, among other things.
On December 14, 2017, marijuana plants grow in a vegetation room at Compassionate Cultivation, a registered medical cannabis cultivator and dispensary in Manchaca, Texas, under green lights to simulate nightfall This church in Los Angeles held Sundayservices at 4:20 p.m. (a period associated with after-school marijuana usage) and sold marijuana to its members in order to let them interact with God. It was shut down shortly after it first opened its doors in 2006, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Craig Rubin, the company's founder, was arrested for selling marijuana to an undercover cop and sentenced to three years on probation after his arrest. Rather than establishing a marijuana-based religious organization, Gross envisions himself as bringing cannabis to mainstream Christians, with the goal of assisting them in exploring their spirituality through smoking before prayeror simply allowing themselves to use it recreationally without feeling guilty.
“It takes you down a path that looks spiritual, but it looks different than your mom’s church,” Gross said. “We have to just be open, I think, to presenting the gospel, presenting the Spirit in different ways.”
While he is actively pursuing investment opportunities, his ultimate goal is to put items on the shelves of dispensaries in California by the end of the year, before extending to many of the 18 states where marijuana is legal for recreational use. His research focuses on cannabis strains that are low in THC — the psychoactive compound that causes a "high" — and in concentrations that aren't too overwhelming for first-time cannabis users to handle.
Cannabis "communion wafers," a "holy water" tincture, and cannabis incense sticksare among the other goods that have been proposed. He explained that his gifts are partially intended to be amusing and partly intended to convey to Christians that cannabis does not have to be frightening and may be found in familiar forms.
Gross recalled after recreational cannabis became legal in California in 2016. 4 out of 5 Protestant pastors in the United States today believe that smoking marijuana is "morally wrong." Orthodox Jewish rabbis hold a similar range of views, with some declaring that medical cannabis is permissible while others opposing it. (Some sources, however, imply that Jews use marijuana at a higher rate than other religious groups in the United States.)
However, according to Cozad, the theological discourse surrounding marijuana use appears to be altering, with fewer people now referring to marijuana use as a sin or as morally worse than in the previous years. According to a survey conducted by the Research Center in 2021, more than half of all religiously affiliated Americans support the legalization of marijuana for both medical and recreational purposes. In the case of white evangelical Christians, this figure reduces to 44 percent, however, some strongly religious Christians are working to have Bible-belt states legalize medicinal marijuana; in 2018, members of the Church of Jesus Christof Latter-day Saints advocated for Utah to legalize the relation and importance medical Cannabis Indicaand spirituality.
Even in light of these shifting attitudes, Cozad believes that projects like Gross' will have little effect on religious leaders' decisions or have any effect at the institutional level, if they succeed at all.
What Does The Marijuana?
It is the dried leaves, flowers, stems, and seeds of the Cannabis sativa or Cannabis indica plant that are referred to as marijuana. Marijuana is a psychoactive narcotic that contains almost 500 different compounds, including THC, a mind-altering ingredient that has been linked to negative health effects in certain people.
Conclusion
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