April 28, 1998

THE LAWRENCE FAMILY
POST OFFICE BOX 515
FOUNTAIN    FLORIDA
              32438

CARL OLSEN
P 0 BOX 4091
DES MOINES, IOWA
50333

Good Morning Carl,

Hope you have the time and patience for one more comment on marijuana being used as a "Sacrament" of the true Church.  There is no such thing as a "sacrament" in either Judiasm, Christianity nor even the "Coptic" version of Christianity as practiced in Egypt.  You will not find the word in either the Old or New testament of the Bible and it was never used by Christians in the first century Church.
        SACRAMENT is derived from the Latin "sacramentum," which in classical times was used in two chief senses: as a technical legal term to denote the sum of money which the two parties to a suit deposited in a temple, of which the winner had his part returned, while the loser forfeited his to the temple treasury; as a technical military term to designate the oath of obediance of a soldier to his commander.  In the Greek there is no word corresponding to "sacrament", nor do we find the word used in the earliest history of Christianity to refer to certain rites of the Church.
        Many contemporary writers who promote the use of "Entheogens" (some word they've made up to denote plants that bring one into union with God) are claiming that modern Christianity is using a "placebo" and that the early church actually used the "herb" and that the practice was perverted or lost.  Dana Beal seems to be one of these proponents as he recently wrote me of the inadequacies of using a cross against vampires because "it only works if you have faith."  He then went on to promote the superiority of garlic and that because of it's definate and consistant chemical construct, "works every time".
        As the Church Lady on Saturday Night Live used to say, "How convenient"; To bypass Faith and circumvent the need for the Gospel.  Of course, Tim Leary's old buddy from Harvard, Richard Alpert, (who later began to call himself Ram Dass) finally publicly admitted the real problem with using an herb to enter "into the sheepfold" is that a few hours later you get kicked out and have to climb up again, relying on something that can be taken away from you by the police or other circumstances.
        Isolating the chemical properties of a plant and presenting it on paper can be very convincing when veiwed in a vacum, far away from the variables which can so easily intervene in the process of molecular manipulation, like policemen with battering rams and thieves who break in and steal your "garlic".
        That is one of the advantages of the cross over the garlic that Paul articulated so well in his letter to the believers at the Church in Rome during the early spring of A.D.57: "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord".
        In the Church that Jesus built, there is no "sacrament" that can be separated from you.
        Hope you'll pass this on.

In our mutual enthusiasm for the
truth and common love and hope
toward a more heavenly treasure,

THE LAWRENCE FAMILY
POST OFFICE BOX 515
FOUNTAIN    FLORIDA
              32438