In July, Texas Governor Greg Abbot signed off on Texas Senate Bill 2308. The bill approves state government funding for research on an unsuspecting and highly controversial drug: ibogaine. Texas is one of many states that are investigating ibogaine and other psychedelics for therapeutic uses. In May, Arizona passed a law that also allocates funding to ibogaine research.

Ibogaine comes from iboga, a shrub native to Central Africa. Traditionally, it is used in Bwiti rituals. Now, scientists are discovering that the drug has potential for treating drug addiction, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Considerable discourse has arisen surrounding the political pushes for ibogaine research. Especially among conservative politicians like Abbot, a concern for veterans underwrites their intentions for leveraging ibogaine therapeutically.

However, many suggest that the conservative push for therapeutic psychedelics is a Christian and specifically evangelical one. As author Jamie Wheal claims, “The psychedelic renaissance is three things: capitalized, conservative, and Christian.” Mattha Busby, a columnist for The Guardian, takes it further, writing that ibogaine “is being championed by evangelical Christians, Republican governors, military veterans, and big tech billionaires.”

The writers mostly point to figures like Bryan Hubbard, a self-described “Universalist Christian” and founder of Americans for Ibogaine. Hubbard describes ibogaine as “God’s medicine” meant to “heal God’s people.”

Yet in the broader evangelical world, psychedelics are in the margins of approval. The Public Religion Research Institute gathered survey data to gauge Americans’ views on drugs like cannabis and psychedelics.

As PRRI reports, 66% of all Americans say that cannabis should be legal in all or most cases. Less than half this percentage–-28% of US adults—say that psychedelics should be legal in all or most cases. This difference is even starker among religious Americans. Among white evangelicals, 56% say that cannabis should be legal in all or most cases, which is already 10 percentage points below the national figure. A meager 14% of white evangelicals say the same for psychedelics.

Furthermore, PRRI’s data shows that approval of drug legalization is significantly impacted when one looks at church attendance. 78% of Americans who attend religious services seldom or never approve of cannabis legalization in all or most cases, while 36% extend the same support for psychedelics. Contrast this with 45% of weekly attenders who approve of cannabis and only 13% of weekly attenders who approve of psychedelics.

If support for psychedelics is low among Protestant Christians and if support for psychedelics decreases as church attendance becomes more frequent, this raises the question of how evangelical the conservative push for ibogaine research really is.

Beyond a doubt, ibogaine and other psychedelics can have religious aspects. Joe Rogan platformed Christians like Bryan Hubbard, who advocate for ibogaine’s medical and spiritual benefits. In November 2025, MMA fighter Conor McGregor shared that during his ibogaine treatment, he had a spiritual experience. God “came to me in the Holy Trinity,” McGregor tweeted, “Jesus descended from the white marble steps of heaven and anointed me with a crown. I was saved!”

One might call these religious developments a form of New Age Christianity. As Phil Cotnoir writes for Mere Orthodoxy, psychedelics can be seen as a correction to the “hard-edge materialism” promoted by New Atheists like Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins. Cotnoir associates the psychedelic turn with “the spiritual-but-not-religious crowd” who have “only a spiritual openness and an allergy to organized religion.”

Carrie Lloyd, writing for Premier Christianity, also looks at psychedelics with distrust. She describes psychedelics as “spiritual Russian roulette” that can produce very positive or very negative spiritual experiences. And both Cotnoir and Lloyd suggest that the Bible’s condemnation of pharmakia (Galatians 5:20) extends to substances like psychedelics.

It is clear, though, that there is a difference between using psychedelics for spiritual exploration versus using drugs like ibogaine for therapeutic and medicinal purposes. For the latter, some medical professionals suggest that faith and treatment might be more in sync than people might think.

Psychologists Adria Luy and Armando Camacho at New Path Ibogaine Center recognize that there can still be concerns that patients might have about ibogaine treatment and their religious faith. As Luy suggests, “Ibogaine, when administered responsibly, is a tool—not a doctrine.” Luy and Camacho write that ibogaine treatment “does not compete with religion—it complements it. By separating cultural tradition from clinical application, patients can embrace its benefits without fear of spiritual compromise.”

The conservative embrace of psychedelics among Christians like Hubbard and politicians like Abbot signals an ongoing debate among American Christians. Are psychedelic drugs compatible with Christianity as medical treatments if not spiritual tools?

And which goals (e.g., treating PTSD among veterans, treating drug addiction for citizens) justify the use of ibogaine?

As the debate rages on, Christians, politicians, and medical professionals will have to answer these fundamental questions about spirituality and healthcare.