April 1, 2015—Creating new religions is something of a tradition in the United States. The most famous examples are the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and the Church of Scientology. Then there’s the guy on the streets of Berkeley I met a few years ago who told me about a system of “alpha-numerics,” where zip codes and addresses take on divine meaning.
Now The Washington Post reports there’s a new religion on the scene in Indiana. The First Church of Cannabis filed paperwork in response to Gov. Mike Pence signing the already controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act on March 26. The law has been criticized as a way to protect businesses that do not want to serve married gay couples.
The First Church of Cannabis will test the tolerance of the new law. Marijuana is illegal in Indiana, but founder Bill Levin said smoking will be welcome in the Church of Cannabis where the official sacrament is listed as cannabis. Readings may include “The Emperor Had No Clothes.” Levin also told the Washington Post that “he hopes to build the first church or temple built of hempcrete, a building material similar to concrete that includes hemp.” Just don’t bring alcohol to church. That’s not allowed.
Brazil is also mixing drugs with religion. The experiment in that country is to use ayahuasca, a hallucinogen commonly used for spiritual awakening, to help ease pressures on a ballooning prison population. At one prison called Acuda, reports the New York Times, prisoners practice meditation, yoga, Ayurvedic massage, and take short furloughs into the rainforest for intense ayahuasca rituals.
“It’s certainly novel among prisoners, but ayahuasca has great potential because under optimal conditions, it can produce a transformative experience in a person,” said Dr. Charles S. Grob, a professor of psychiatry at the U.C.L.A. School of Medicine.
Buddhism also champions transformation, but the message is usually about inner work, rather than social justice. That could change under the 17th Karmapa of Tibet. He is the leader of the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism, and the monk possibly in line to replace the Dalai Lama when he dies. Religion News Service reports that the Karmapa is taking a public stand on social issues such as race relations and the status of women in Buddhism. He’s pushing an initiative to “turn monasteries into centers for environmental sustainability.” He also recently backed an effort to give women full ordination for the first time in the Tibetan tradition.
Tibetan Buddhism isn’t the only culture making shifts. Many Catholic Latinos are giving up their religion of birth and going evangelical. The San Jose Mercury News reports that the number of Latinos who identify as Catholic dropped from 67 percent in 2006 to about 59 percent in 2013. But according to the Mercury News, they’re not dropping religion altogether. The number of Latinos who identify as Evangelical rose from 14 percent in 2006 to 18 percent in 2013.
Latinos say there’s more freedom at the Evangelical churches. They can incorporate cultural and spiritual practices frowned on by the Catholic church.
“Pentecostalism speaks to the tradition of supernatural phenomena within many Latinos’ world view and that’s definitely a point of attraction for many,” said Jonathan Calvillo, a researcher at UC Irvine studying Latino Evangelical congregations in California. “The tradition empowers the individual to engage in the spirit world in their own terms.”
-Judy Silber
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