Narco Non Victims

Religious Narcotics

The word narcotic comes from the Greek word “narkos”, meaning sleep. Therefore, narcotics are drugs that induce sleep. Drugs, such as opium or morphine in moderate doses, dulls the senses, relieves pain, and induces profound sleep but in excessive doses causes stupor, coma, or convulsions. 

Karl Marx put it this way, “”Religion is the opiate of the people”.

When I first heard that statement as a born again fundamentalists in the heart of the Bible Belt, you can probably guess what I said or at least thought. This communist doesn’t know anything about God. Now, while that’s probably a true statement, what I didn’t realize at the time is that I was confusing God with religion.

Unfortunately, it took me several decades to totally comprehend that!

John Shelby Spong wrote of his transition from biblical fundamentalism to the authority of the church fundamentalism. It was traumatic for him to awaken to what he had once deeply believed in- and now realizing that the whole belief system was wrong at the core. Thus he wrote, “When people get to the point where they do not believe what they are saying, they still seem to believe in believing in what they are saying”.

I’ve been there as many have.

If there was ever an entity that should lead us into WHOLENESS (physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual) of being, it should be the church. However, it seems as though the promotion and defense of DOCTRINE has been more important than just LOVING people. If Jesus loved everyone and didn’t put any requirements on the healing of sinners, why do we?

Religious cliches can’t help a grieving parent who has lost a child. A doctrinal statement can’t lift the burden of terminally ill individual. You can tell me that “By his stripes we are healed”, but that doesn’t resonate within my spirit. Unfortunately the church has offered religious narcotics, in the form of doctrinal statements, when it’s love and attention that we need. Isn’t that what Jesus offered?

Isn’t that what God IS (light and love)?

May we begin to let our light shine for frequently while our narcotic doctrinal statements and dogmas fall from our voices less often. We need to AWAKEN from our religious slumber and come into the spiritual LIGHT that IS!