Thanks for your comments. I share your suspicion of any version of Christianity that gets nervous about people enjoying themselves. However, there’s also a matter of moderation to explore. God gave wine to make man’s heart glad (Psalm 104), but He also forbids getting drunk (Ephesians 5:18). Although the specific statement here has to do with wine, surely the same principles apply to other psychoactive substances. It would seem that drunkenness on one hand and fear of natural pleasure on the other are the two ditches on either side of the narrow road. The goal is to find, and stay on, the road. That may mean that some substances are just too strong to mess with. Taking belladonna, after all, has been known to have serious side effects of the corpse-making variety; it certainly doesn’t follow that something is sensible to take just because it’s natural. It’s a broken world.

While I see no particular reason to believe that alcohol is somehow sanctified in some way that couldn’t possibly apply to any other substance, I find I’m suspicious of what seem to me fairly tortured efforts to find a variety of intoxicants in the biblical accounts. Nobody can live on psilocybin for 40 years, for one thing, and for another, I’m inclined to the curious notion that “foxes” refers to, well, foxes. The Samson story doesn’t seem particularly unlikely to me; having conceded that God made the entire universe in six days, parted the Red Sea, and raised Jesus from the dead, I don’t even blink at the idea of His appointed servant gathering up 300 reclusive foxes. God did far more for Noah…

Another variety of the amanita muscaria grows south
of the fortieth parallel, with the pine as its host-tree, and is
equally hallucinogenic. That it was ritually used in Biblical
times is suggested by an unwritten Hebrew taboo on mushrooms,
broken only by the non-orthodox. (Arabs, by the way, are
mycophagous, which perhaps accounts for the mushroom eating in
those parts of Southern Europe occupied by the Saracens during
the early Middle Ages.) I have elsewhere suggested that the
golden ‘ermrods’ laid up in the Ark together with a pot of
hallucinogenic manna really represented sacred mushrooms. A
concealed reference to their use appears in the Book of Judges:
the unlikely story of how Samson collected three hundred foxes
and sent them into the Philistine’s cornfields [grainfields] with
torches tied to their tails. The Palestinian fox is not
gregarious and the task of capturing three hundred of them, at
the rate of one or two a day, and feeding them all until he had
collected the full number would have been a senselessly
exhausting one. Besides, how could he make sure that the foxes
would run into the cornfields and keep the torches alight? The
truth seems to be that Samson organized a battalion of raiders–
three hundred was the conventional Hebrew battalion strength, as
appears in the story of Gideon–and sent them out with torches to
burn the Philistine’s corn. Indeed, in the 1948 Jewish War of
Liberation, a raiding battalion was named ‘Samson’s Foxes.’ But
why foxes? Because the juice of the amanita muscaria mushrooms
(which still grow under the pines of Mount Tabor) could be laced
with ivy juice or wine to make the raiders completely fearless,
and because this variety, when dried, is fox-colored. So are
other mushrooms, such as the popular chanterelle which the
Russians call lisichka, ‘little fox’; but to clarify its meaning
the Bible specifies ‘little foxes with fire on their tails’. In
the Song of Solomon the Shunemite bride, about to take part in a
sacred marriage, urges her lover to fetch her ‘the little foxes
that spoil the vines, for my vines have tender grapes’. She means
Solomon must fortify his manhood with mushroom-juice laced with
wine, the better to enjoy her young beauty.

I also Know where to find possible evidence stating that the manna of the bible was the Psilocybin mushroom the illegal kind. If you want to know more on this ask. Anyways what I’m getting at and what frustrates me is that God made plants and everything god made was good. And I am told not to indulge in these things cause its an altered state to many questions stay in my mind why would these plants effect our minds in such profound revealing ways if were not supposed to indulge. God put them there and they just so happen to effect our minds in strange ways. It just bothers me natural things like meditation plants dancing. There natural how can they be bad? Anyways I’m ranting on anyways I really like your articles and I would love to hear some of your thoughts on this I like to live a christian life but If I am a true christian I’m a very skeptical and open minded one.

David,
Thanks; me too. I haven’t a clue what it’s going to look like.

Jim,
It is; hadn’t you noticed?

Stephen,
Yeah, that crossroads sounds very familiar indeed. Thank you for your kind words, and may God guide and guard you through your own set of choices. Don’t let the “what ifs” make you crazy — as sure as we’re all sinners, we all have plenty of moments where our lives not only could have gone differently — they should have. Every pilgrim’s progress has some rough patches in it, but God bends it all to His purposes as we go, and all the wrong turns notwithstanding, He makes sure we find our way to the celestial city in the end. Hope you can make it to Denver sooner rather than later — I’d love to see you again.

I’ve been keeping track of your blog posts here and have been talking to Joe some here and there as well. I don’t always have a comment to your posts but I always try to at least understand what you’re saying. Anyways, thanks for sharing your thoughts and your self. I’m excited for whatever comes your way in the end and what you learn from the journey. God bless you man. And if I have my way, I’m coming out to the Denver sometime in 2012 for some fellowship and discussion.

Meanwhile, I’m very much at my own crossroads with occupation/career, what is my ministry?, What community am I to be invested in?, Sounds familiar huh?

On top of all that I have a good case of the “what if’s”, mostly due to my own decisions/mishaps. So I might be paying my dues in some ways which sounds much different than your situation, but I am ready and have to be patient even if its years before God has me in a place where I’m really fulfilling my potential. And the journey that takes me from here to wherever it is he would have me — is most crucial. That I really learn and “get” what God is trying to show me and how he is trying to strengthen me and stretch me.

Anyways, I thank God for you!
And Keep on keeping on!

God can and will certainly use you as a bus driver, and there is nothing wrong with that, but He has also given you a great mind and keen insight into theology and Scripture which many in the church desperately need.

So keep your eyes open for when, where, and how God will open up new doors of opportunity. I, for one, am looking forward to seeing where God leads you.

Yeah, it may look like a big pile of dirt and rubble right now, but as you say, this is the first step to building a mansion…

It has been a pleasure and an encouragement to walk with you this last year. I am glad that I had the chance to meet you and your wife this year, and I hope to get to know you better in the year to come. I love the direction that God is leading you in. I especially like the quote “but I’m no longer interested in hunting for worthy causes to fight for. I’d rather find unworthy people to love.”

Praying for God’s blessing on you, your ministry, and your family.

Edwin “FedEx” Aldrich
President,
Men of Praise Motorcycle Ministry