By most standards, I would be considered a heathen. Dictionary.com, that wormhole for word nerds, provides the primary definition for “heathen” thusly: “an individual of a people that do not acknowledge the God of the Bible; a person who is neither a Jew, Christian, nor Muslim; a pagan.”
The entry also says “heathen” is a word that is “disparaging and offensive,” although I have never felt it to be so. Still, any right-wing-leaning readers with a strong religious bent (provided you even exist) are welcome to hurl it at me. Trust me, I’ve heard far worse.
But I may be willing to cleave unto the Lord by way of a recently opened church in Denver, Colorado, which was profiled in an article by the Guardian.
The Church of Cannabis opened in 2016, on April 20, because of course it did. It’s the brainchild of Yale University graduate Steve Berke and his fellow stoner buddy, Lee Molloy. Berke had relocated to Denver to enter the cannabis industry, and was living in a 113-year-old church his parents had purchased with plans to convert it into apartments. In a conversation that I would have loved to have heard, Berke convinced his parents to give him the church so that he could start up a place of worship with some unique facets.