“Genesis 1:12, sir. ‘God made every seed-bearing plant’.”
The adolescent theologian smirked in triumph. I had to admit he had a point. Didn’t God make all things, including drugs? Weren’t they to be received with thanksgiving? And yet, of course, the suffering caused by drugs is immense, both in terms of numbers of lives affected and within individuals and their families. As one student of mine wrote about the choice to take drugs:
It’s not a question of intelligence. If your life is crap, you look for a way out of the crappiness and drugs is a damn good way to escape (either that or suicide—which would you prefer people to do?). And anyways, what else can they do but turn to drugs when really life is alot LESS PAINFUL for them when they’re on drugs.
When we talk about drugs, teenagers sniff the hypocrisy on us. I have to front classrooms of children doped up on Ritalin and other medications. The profit-driven machinations of pharmaceutical companies are in the media. To talk merely about a couple of recreational drugs seems hollow. And anyhow, I have been a drug user for many years. I have addictions. And I don’t just do it for the taste either. It’s just that my drugs are deemed legal.
This would be true of most human beings one way or the other. It’s probably true of you. So why do we get steamed up about some types of drug use and not others? The government-sponsored forums and campaigns tend to focus on illegal drugs like heroin and ecstasy, and sensationalist media plays on the deepest fears of parents about teenage drug use (“a program no concerned parent should miss”). We fail to see the issue of drug use on the broader canvas it is actually painted on. In addition, there is much theological confusion about the issue of drug use. What is a proper, biblically informed and informed, theology of drugs?
Further adding to the difficulty for youth workers and high school teachers is that we are addressing the issue to both Christians and non-Christians. It feels weird, and seems a distraction from the gospel, to be asking non-Christians to embrace a ‘Christian lifestyle’. And why are Christians de facto drug educators anyhow?
Ollie Batchelor’s book Use and Misuse—A Christian Perspective on Drugs is a well-researched, up-to-date and biblically astute answer to this need. It is also attractively written out of a genuine Christian concern for and first-hand experience of the millennial generation. Batchelor includes a wealth of relevant historical, sociological and medical data, including a listing of the various drugs and their current alternative names. The book is very English, but the statistics could easily be adapted with half an hour on the internet.
He then probes the reasons people use drugs. One of the most helpful of his points is that people use possibly harmful drugs is at least partly because they make you feel good. My tendency with young people had been to over-psychologise—to see drug experimentation as a self-esteem problem or something like that. This is merely patronizing.
What Batchelor argues is that drug use is a pointer to a “deep, unconscious longing for completeness and perfection” (p.95). The sense of belonging with other users and the dulling of pain and the enhancement of pleasure are all hints of the glory of intimate union with God. Christians are right to feel the need to respond to drug use, because the gospel is such a superior answer to the question. He concludes with a clarion call to Christians:
Love is at the heart of our calling, if we are to reflect the character and concerns of God to the world and the individuals in it. God is love. each of us was created by love and for love, and only through love will we find true fulfillment. Love is not about feelings or giving things, which our materialistic society invariably confuses with love. Love is about self-giving, and any practical thing we do or give is an expression of that self-giving (p. 111).
He then has thirteen excellent suggestions for Christians to make a difference, including getting informed, praying, doing voluntary work, developing a drug and alcohol ministry, offering meaningful spirituality and working for justice. I found the comment on “meaningful spirituality” intriguing: it seems to me that young people are craving an authentic experience of the divine in their lives. They long for God to touch them. And yet in churches we are often wary of giving too voluble expression to our spiritual experience.
But how to broach the subject of drugs and drug use in the classroom? Resources for tired teachers are scarce, but Living in the Light—A Christian Drug Education Resource has been developed by Amy Butler as an initiative of the Social Issues Executive of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney. The package contains a video and a CD-ROM with lesson plans, resources and visuals. Helpfully, the material contains modules for students in 11-13 years age group, the 13-15 years age group and for 15-18 years age group. There are very clear educational outcomes stated; and each module has three stages, incorporating information, research, experiential learning and discussion. There are helpful biblical reflections and opportunities for theological reflection on the gospel and its implications.
The activities are impressive in their range and include scenarios, testimonies, assignments, group discussions and various other modes of learning. There is no need for any of the lessons to be dull! I was a little disappointed by the video, which, although I haven’t as yet had a chance to road test it with school students, appears a little one dimensional—it features two people who have struggled with the impact of drugs on their lives talking direct to camera. It is easy for teenagers hearing older people talking to say, “I am not an alcoholic”. What works with teens is usually discussing immediate consequences rather than what to them seems the distant future.
Both of these resources have helped me to realize that the issue of drugs is in reality a great way into the gospel, because it touches on the immediate needs and hopes of young people and makes it possible for them to reflect on their existence. It is possible to talk about the inherent goodness of the created order and of human existence, to then point to its obvious misuse and corruption and the harmful side-effects, and then to discover the alternative and more permanent fix—the redemption offered in Jesus Christ.
