Rocky Mountain High
This past week, I attended a Christian conference in Denver, Colorado. I had never visited Colorado before–or really any part of the Northwestern US for that matter. As a native of Louisiana, I spend most of my time in the Deep South. So, I definitely picked up on the oddities of this new region that I visited.
As you can likely guess, the Denver area felt like a foreign country to me. Of course, the humidity was much lower and the altitude was much higher. However, the biggest difference I picked up on was the people–particularly the transplants who have moved to Colorado.
Oddly enough, most of the Uber drivers I talked with during my trip were Denver natives (i.e. people who were born and raised in Denver/Colorado). Interestingly enough, they all echoed the sentiment that Denver has changed significantly in recent decades–some thinking the change was positive and others for the worse.
Based on UN population data, the population of the Denver area nearly doubled between 1990 and 2020 (from about 1.5 million people in 1990 to about 2.5 million). The graph below highlights this massive population growth.
Considering Denver’s population growth, you may ask yourself these questions: who exactly is moving to Denver? Are young families moving to Denver to settle and put down roots? As you can guess, not really.
From my observation and discussion with locals, most of Denver’s population growth appears to come from unattached, irreligious young adults. I can attest to this fact from spending a few days in the Denver area and observing the locals. A pastor I met during the conference–himself a Colorado native–told me that Denver is a place where people can “reinvent” themselves. No longer do people have to be constrained by their families, local communities, or Churches. Instead, people can live a care-free, child-free, and duty-free life in a new city far away from home.
In some ways, Colorado has become the new “California” in terms of “reinventing” oneself–especially considering the outrageous cost-of-living and rampant crime in much of California today. In essence, the Denver area represents the antithesis of the traditional American society–the “New American Society”.
One example of the “New American Society” in Denver is the replacement of orthodox Christianity with secular humanism (a.k.a. “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism). If you visit downtown Denver, you can find an institution called the “International Church of Cannabis”
Here is a description of the Church of Cannabis from the group’s website:
“Members of the International Church of Cannabis are known as Elevationists. Through ritual, guided by spiritual practice, church members use the sacred flower to reveal the best version of self, discover a creative voice and enrich their community with the fruits of that creativity. Unlike other belief systems, there is no need to convert to Elevationism. It claims no divine law, no unquestionable doctrine, and no authoritarian structure.“
What sticks out about the “Church of Cannabis” is its obvious inversion of Christianity–one of fundamental aspects of the “Traditional American society”. Instead of worshipping the Lord Jesus Christ, this group promotes the religion of “the self”.
While I did enjoy the natural beauty of the Denver area, it saddens me to observe the rampant homelessness/open drug use, public school indoctrination, and mass immigration plaguing this beautiful part of the country.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed my musings about my visit to Denver and gained some new perspective to boot!
