Dr Paul Allen

English: The Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana (www.wamm.org) presents Victoria, the nation's first legal medical marijuana plant. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) How should we think theologically about the movement to decriminalize marijuana ?   Author: think Christian. To do so, it’s helpful to ponder the phrase “ substance abuse .” This phrase, commonly used to describe drug abuse, can also be read as a theological explanation of both the goodness of creation and the nature of sin. A proper doctrine of creation reminds us that material substances are not evil in and of themselves. In philosophical circles, “substance” simply describes any particular thing, including material things. In contrast, sin is not a physical substance , like a germ or bacteria that infects us. This may seem counterintuitive because we often associate evil with material things. As G. K. Chesterton points out , however, “The work of heaven alone was material; the making of a material world

Image via Wikipedia The new Ken Burns series  “Prohibition”  aired recently on PBS . (If you missed it, it’s streaming on a number of services and PBS’  website .) I was excited to watch it, especially because I had done some reading on the history of the 1920s as part of my dissertation research. I annoyed my husband by offering factoids before the documentary got to them, but the series also made me think, in both a historical and contemporary context, about the complexity of sin. The most surprising thing to me was this statement from historian  Barry Hankin s: “If the goal was to significantly reduce drinking and reduce the influence of the saloon in American culture, then Prohibition was a success.” Before my research, I had been working with received knowle Image via Wikipedia dge that the prohibition law was a total failure. It didn’t prevent people from drinking and it fed organized crime. While both of those claims are true – and the crime problem might be enough to still