UPDATE II: Daniel Whitfield’s comprehensive survey of the Biblical teaching on Alcohol use is a must have resource. Top notch. Distribute widely please. My own journey through the hypocrisy of Southern Baptists on this issue was written in One Big Happy Lie.
UPDATE: Please read the comments on this post. Sad, sad, sad. The traditions of men doing exactly what Jesus said they would do.
Missouri Southern Baptists- 600,000 of them- are being torn apart by a battle indicative of what the current Southern Baptist Convention faces.
Alcohol- specifically what position regarding moderate, temperate use of alcoholic beverages churches are obligated to endorse- was the big issue at the recent Missouri Baptist convention meeting. Alcohol fundamentalists are well aware that the Bible is not on the side of their teetotal position, but that isn’t stopping them from insisting that Missouri Baptists must be united on this issue.
In other words, Biblical authority takes a back seat to the authority of culture and opinion. These are the same people that wanted any SBC professor fired who didn’t say he/she believed the Bible was without error in all that it affirms.
This issue, if not resolved, will cost Southern Baptists a bunch of future church affiliations and the already precarious interest of thousands of younger pastors. This issue needs to be shelved and soon. This will strangle cooperation at a time it is most needed.
Neither the SBC’s Cooperative Program mechanism for funding mission work or the Baptist Faith and Message doctrinal statement require the position of the alcohol fundamentalists. Everyone is aware that this isn’t about the abuse of alcohol, and a fair number of the people getting red-faced over the issue show evidence that if the bar in question were a buffet, they’ve been frequenting it more than once a year.
Unite around the Gospel essentials that will support cooperative missions. The path of wisdom is obvious. Ramming this non-Biblical binding of conscience down the throats of Southern Baptists is going to be a disaster for the SBC’s connection with future generations.
Your comments welcome, especially if you are a Southern Baptist.
I am a former one. I only ask, what’s the old joke about 2 SBCs not acknowledging each other in the liquor store? I still carry scars from being made to feel that my parents (one SBC and one DoC) were in some way “immoral” because they were social drinkers.
Michael, this just shows the futility of Sola Scriptura and why you should become Catholic.
(jn).
Very funny. Actually….the denominations that allow drinking should run counter ads.
“The United Methodist Church: Where You Don’t Go To Hell for a Beer.”
“The PCUSA: If you go to our General Assembly, you’ll need a drink.”
(jn)
Oooh! We’ve got one!
“The Catholic Church: Come for the wine, Stay for the bingo”
The way I always heard the joke was: “Why do you never invite just one Baptist to go fishing with you?”
“If you invite one, he’ll drink all your beer. If you invite two, they won’t drink any.”
Interestingly enough, my SBC does not really press the whole alcohol issue much at all. We do have one Dutch friend who’s a member and who openly admits to drinking beer. I believe he has taken some heat from certain people because of that in the past, but I think that in general people don’t bother him about it.
Every once in a while I elbow the Pastor about using real wine in the communion instead of grape juice–I don’t expect it to ever happen, though.
My dog just posted this at the BHT.
***Irony Alert***
“Tonight’s Regular Meeting of “Missouri Baptist Pastors Against An Occasional Beer†will be at the Golden Trough Buffet in the old Wal-Mart building on South 40. All you can eat for $7. No need to bring your Bibles. Selected verses will be handed out at the meeting.â€
Call this reason #384 why I am no longer a Southern Baptist. Like the first commenter, I got sick and tired of hearing condemnations against anyone who drank anything at all.
From a former Southern Baptist (BSU director and Pastor):
My wife and I went all the way through the process of applying as missionaries with the IMB (then FMB) 10+ years ago. We were rejected for one reason and one reason only — I drink an occasional beer. In fact, the guy who was midwifing us through the process told us we had the, “Clearest call of anyone in the current group of applicants to foreign missions.” But there was no way he could put us before the board (there is an actual board). We could have all kinds of other issues in our lives, but that was an absolute deal killer.
We chalked it up to God’s providence, went to seminary and now I’m an Anglican.
Still….
And as an Anglican, you’ve certainly moved on from the occasional beer
Ha!
You have to laugh at these stories. Jesus can weep, but I have to laugh.
Former SBC, also. The way I heard it: “Jews don’t recognize Jesus as Messiah, Lutherans don’t recognize the infallibility of the pope, and Baptists don’t recognize each other in the liquor store.”
Amen on the buffet. I served with an SBC pastor once who swore us all to abstinence with alcohol but we later discovered that he didn’t abstain of other people’s wives. Cheers!
“Neither the SBC’s Cooperative Program mechanism for funding mission work or the Baptist Faith and Message doctrinal statement require the position of the alcohol fundamentalists.”
My friends at the Baptist Seminary in New Orleans are required to sign a statement pledging not to drink at all, but as I understand it they must also, if they want to be missionaries with the IMB, must declare that they have not had a drink within 5 years or, if they have, explain why. Certainly the faith and message doesn’t force the issue, but the IMB seems to have a required position here. I could be off here, I admit, it’s been few since I ran with the Baptists. I moved elsewhere because I came to believe in Real Presence in the Sacrament though, not so much over the alchohol thing, though (as a young pastor) it does irk me.
I’m an SBC’er. I love my church. The other day my pastor was talking about the Lord’s Supper and he mentioned ‘the bread and the juice’. I couldn’t help but smile and wonder why we don’t go ahead and call the little wafers what they really are and have ‘juice and crackers’ for communion!
Like you said, Michael, you gotta laugh–it does beat crying.
On the more serious side, though… A while back I was considering helping out with our youth group. I was told that I would have to sign an agreement that included abstaining from ‘drug use’–which I was informed included alcohol–while working with the youth. The leadership says that they do not believe that alcohol use is a sin but that it might set a bad example for the young people or present a temptation to them if they saw it one of the adult leader’s home and/or were to sneak off with some.
I decided against taking the position (not because of this issue) but I really was tempted to ask if caffeine and prescription medication would be placed in the category of drugs–particularly psychotropic drugs (the agreement did not specify illegal or recreational drug use) and if they also advised locking up valuables in the leaders’ homes to prevent tempting any of the kids to steal. There are a whole lot of mixed signals going out on this issue.
I confess that, while I don’t hide the fact that I believe it is both biblical and healthy to use, but not abuse, alcohol, I haven’t yet taken on this issue with my church. And with their fairly moderate stance on the subject I’m content to leave it in the category of Romans 14 and not make an issue of it.
I’m not a Baptist, but I play one on TV….
Seriously though. My denomination (Assemblies of God) likewise frowns upon liquor. I’ve actually heard a pastor from my denomination said, “We don’t approve of liquor for the same reason we don’t approve of abortion. The bible doesn’t say anything specific against it, but we just know it’s wrong.”
This, from one of the purported disciples of the Man who provided the good stuff for a wedding. (Jn 2)
I don’t drink — mainly ’cause of all the alcoholics in my family, which is a statistic I don’t wish to join. It makes my complaint odd, since I’m advocating for a freedom I don’t personally have. But far be it for me to deny someone else anything that Jesus personally has no problem with. It reminds me too much of Peter’s comment, “Why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?” (Ac 15:10) Just as the Pharisees among the Christians insisted on their culture over God’s grace, so many of our churches do likewise. It’s hard enough following the commandments without all this adding to them.
We’re members currently of an SBC church. My wife, however, grew up Roman Catholic and my background from childhood on is thoroughly pluralistic in the broadest sense of the term. We mostly just observe this with a raised eyebrow and long since gave up trying to make sense out of it. We do watch it tear people apart, though. I remember one family (former Presbyterians) who had an adult son who was having a champagne toast at his reception. When they heard about it, one of the mother’s closest friends told them she wouldn’t go to the wedding because of that.
Sigh.
I was interviewed for the position of youth minister at a church in Missouri. They sent me a questionnaire that contained 75 questions that I had to answer and then send back. One of the questions dealt with the issue of alcohol and I answered with my convictions that teetotaling wasn’t the biblical stance.
Needless to say the interview went well, but the issue was with this one question dealing with alcohol. Nothing else was a problem. There were no problems dealing with the foundational doctrine questions, or with Scripture itself, or my philosophy of ministry. They hammered me with questions about all kinds of issues, but when it came time to decide on calling me to fill the position, the one issue that kept them from doing so, was my position on alcohol. Missouri Southern Baptists are serious about his issue. Sad, but true.
What?? The Bible doesn’t say anything against abortion? What about the whole not-killing-people thing? Oh wait, wrong topic.
I went to a SB college. Obviously it was a dry campus (in theory, anyway), and we did not hold any sponsored dances either.
Also, they had this rule that unmarried people were not to have sex. Why? Because it could lead to dancing, of course!
But I digress. Nothing of use to add here, just joining everyone else in the eye-rolling.
I attend a somewhat rare SBC church here in South Carolina. We have a reformed-oriented, Gospel-preaching pastor who is a teetotaler, but tells people in the new member class that he has no problem with them drinking (puts it well within the realm of where Christians may comfortably disagree. He’s not a young pastor either). All that and he’s gun-ho IMB and Lotte-Moon.
It’s sort of weird to me. I just have a hard time believing this is still such an issue. That people who are such sticklers for the Bible being the sole rule of faith and practice cling to such an obvious man-made tradition when it comes to the issue of alcohol. I searched and searched the scriptures over this back in college when a friend challenged me to make my case for no drinking and in the end, I had to submit to what the Bible was saying, which was that drinking in moderation was not a sin…getting drunk was.
Interestingly, though I’m not a Southern Baptist, I was applying for a job at the Baptist Book Store in Nashville back in the mid-90s. It was a position for manager/buyer for the music department. I had the experience they wanted, I hit it off with the store manager. Everything was lining up. Then there was a question on the employment application covering drinking and other moral issues and being a representative of the SBC and asked if you participated in any of the listed things. I was honest and said that I drank from time to time, a glass of wine or a beer with dinner, that sort of thing. But I said that if this was an issue that I would be willing to abstain as long as I was employed there. Amazingly, the manager told me it was going to be a dealbreaker. He understood but the committee that had final say on my employment would kick it out because even if I waited until I was no longer employed, people might recognize me as being an employee there and if I was drinking somewhere it would reflect badly on the SBC.
Then he said something curious…basically that if I hadn’t answered the question that way, it wouldn’t have been an issue. I said, “in other words, if I was dishonest, I’d have the job right now but since I showed integrity by being forthcoming, you’re turning me down.” He sort of shrugged and said his hands were tied and I didn’t get the job. And at the time, I needed that job. I was only 7 months out of college and my first job with a Christian music company evaporated after a buyout from one of the big secular record companies and a total restructuring eliminated my position.
Good ole legalism. Been crushing spirits and weighing down Christ’s easy yoke for centuries.
I group up in an SBC church in Spartanburg, SC. I attended (and still do, sparingly) a SBC college in Greenville, SC (North Greenville College). I attended Lifeway camps and retreats throughout my entire Middle and High school years. I visited many SBC churches in SC through a ministry i was involved in at NGC. I attended ministries and had friends at many SBC churches in the upstate South Carolina. I now am the Student Pastor at an SBC church in Western North Carolina and have connections in quite a few area churches. I’m only 22 years old (i had to think about that for a minute, memory loss is starting early), and I haven’t seen but a small fraction of the SBC.
But, I’m convinced that it won’t be around much longer. I’m convinced that so many people are completely losing touch with the culture and the Bible and the importance of knowing God that the SBC is on its way out and the churches that survive will either do so independently or as part of some of these new-fangled “networks” or something. The alcohol issue is only the tip of the iceberg.
I always loved Lewis’s response to teetotalism…
I strongly object to the tyrannic and unscriptural insolence of anything that calls itself a Church and makes teetotalism a condition of membership. Apart from the more serious objection (that Our Lord Himself turned water into wine and made wine the medium of the only rite He imposed on all His followers), it is so provincial (what I believe you people call “small town”).
The ‘provincial’ part doesn’t really matter in my mind, but the rest of it’s great. ‘Insolence’… love it.
I go to a Reformed Southern Baptist Church. We don’t line up needless to say. I think it is sad that neither Timothy nor Jesus could be messengers at our convention meetings. I find it sad that we get red faced and won’t allow a little sprinkling in the baptistry, but we don’t mind a little grape juice in the communion. It seems if we are so biblical on one, we sould be biblical on the other: “baptism is immersion and fruit of the vine is wine”.
My church is pretty good about this, the pastor realizes the Bible commends wine on certain occassions. Most “educated” people can read the Bible and realize the difference between drunkeness and moderation. I keep wondering what agenda this is serving and I think it’s just pure and simple legalism. We don’t like certain aspects of society so we fight against it. I personally don’t drink, my father was an alcoholic. But as long as my elders are not given to “much wine” I’m ok with it.
This is on par with the tongues issue, where we have missionaries being sidelined because of things not in the BFM. In my opinion, the SBC is eaten up with legalism and a good dose of 16th century Theology might clear some of that up. But then again, a denomination that sprang into existence over defending slavery isn’t likely to take the medicine easily. It makes me sad that after working very hard in seminary to help the SBC, they might not hire me because I’m ok with a little drinking, a little smoking, and a little Tulip.
*sigh* once again painting all Baptists with a broad stroke.
Isn’t it something how things have changed so much that now the folks who dare to be against drinking are considered to be the nutjobs? I guess I will have to go and get smashed so that I can make lost folks at home. Let’s no worry about the gospel either, that might make them uncomfortable.
While the Bible does not specifically forbid the consumption of beverages that contain alcohol, it does forbid drunkenness.
“Norman Geisler, former Dean of Liberty Center for Christian Scholarship, Liberty University, has written: ‘Many wine drinking Christians today mistakenly assume that what the New Testament meant by wine is identical to wine used today. This, however, is false. In fact, today’s wine is by Biblical definition strong drink, and hence forbidden by the Bible. What the Bible frequently meant by wine was basically purified water,’ purified by adding some alcoholic wine. The Holman Bible dictionary says, wine was also used as a medicine and disinfectant.â€
“Geisler goes on to say, ‘Therefore, Christians ought not to drink wine, beer, or other alcoholic beverages for they are actually strong drink forbidden in Scripture. Even ancient pagans did not drink what some Christians drink today.’”
Let us therefore make sure that we do not bind others in the exercise of our personal freedom. Remember, according to statistics, ten percent of all who take up social drinking because of your freedom will become problem drinkers. Are we like Paul willing to give up our liberties for the benefit of others?
@K.W. Leslie,
Your ‘complaint’ is not odd. While God created a good earth for us to live in, we at times can find ways to use it for idolatry in its broadest sense. Many people do that with alcohol. If you wish not to drink for fear of such an addiction, then that is your conscience. But it is most commendable that you are not doing it by demonizing it as the fundamentalists do. While I occasionally drink, if I am with someone like you I would have no problem abstaining because I respect such an opinion. Privately is another story. I understand about the family background, personally I cannot stand cheap beer. Any beer that looks like you could refill the glass in the bathroom, I have no desire to drink. That comes from my upbringing, and frankly, it does not matter that much to me. I like Guinness. I would not call your position odd, maybe cautious and definitely mature.
The question I have is: how do we work against such “non-Biblical binding of conscience” with regards to not only this, but other issues through out all of our denominations? And when I say “work against” I mean in the most Christ-honoring way we can manage.
The answer varies somewhat,perhaps, depending on the role of individuals in their churches but even so, I think it’s worth discussing.
When ever anybody tries to enforce something with rules it becomes law which always brings death. We need to lead people to love Jesus with everything they have and train people to know the word and allow their convictions to lead them in these disputable matters. Far to often we argue and debate points that are nothing more than a distraction from what we all should be doing. My 2 cents worth
An a current IMB person I have issues with this as well. I don’t drink because I don’t like the taste of it. But I don’t like the fact that an organization is dictating my behavior to me. In the SBC we claim that each church is autonomous but then we allow organizations to dictate theology and behaviors. I love cigars, but it’s equal to having an affair if I light up even on vacation. The real issue isn’t the alcohol it’s the control factor on issues that aren’t fundamental to the gospel.
Good grief John the Bapt. Half the people in this discussion said they don’t drink. They deplore the legalism and the abandonment of the Bible. Do you want to be commended for NOT doing what scripture says can be done in moderation? And do you want those who DO what scripture says to be condemned?
No one is a “nutjob.” Legalism is ugly and specifically condemned in scripture. The SBC can be a denomination of abstainers and still not be a denomination of legalists. Ask John Piper about that one. No one deplores alcohol more than him, and he admits and practices in his church exactly what the New Testament teaches.
If a bunch of SBCers are going to whine that “Now we find out we abstained for the wrong reasons. Feel sorry for us,” then we’ve gotten pathetic.
It’s about the authority of scripture. Missionaries are being turned away!!
Psalm 104 states that God gave to man wine “that gladdens the heart.”
“While the Bible does not specifically forbid the consumption of beverages that contain alcohol, it does forbid drunkenness.”
It forbids drunkenness, but endorses a wine-inspired gladness.
If wine-inspired gladness were an evil, then Psalm 104 would read..
“God gave to man wine that so abominably makes him tipsy and liable to commit every kind of foul abomination in the attendant loss of faculties. God expected them to use it to purify water, as medicinal purposes, to cure stomach ailments, but in their wickedness they drank it socially and began to feel merry.”
There is a state of gladness and merriment reached before landing in drunkeness. And everyone who drinks moderately knows this, though they might not feel at liberty to admit it in sanctified company. If it didn’t, what would wine’s appeal be? Just as caffeine gives a nice charge of energy without doing what cocaine would do, so wine in moderation gives a nice “joy” without doing what a good sloshing would do.
It’s because so many adults get saved by iced-tea socials. In 1957.
We kill me. As somebody else has said, “this is why I hate us.”
There are plenty of good personal reasons for abstaining from both wine or strong drink and everyone is in agreement about the Scriptures in regards to drunkenness. However,there are no scriptural mandates for abstinence and I must say that I am surprised that a former dean of a center for Christian scholarship (as quoted in a earlier post)would make the statement,’Therefore, Christians ought not to drink wine, beer, or other alcoholic beverages for they are actually strong drink forbidden in Scripture. Even ancient pagans did not drink what some Christians drink today’
Whether or not beer and wine would be considered strong drink by ancient standards is a subject for debate but is not really what concerns me. What concerns me is that a man involved in Christian scholarship would claim that ‘strong drink’ is forbidden in scripture. Deuteronomy 14:26, Proverbs 31:6
A while back an anonymous biblical scholar started a blog in order to engage his fellow Christian scholars on this subject. He got little in the way of serious scholarly debate and finally gave up in despair saying something to the effect that he could care less if all the alcohol on earth disappeared tomorrow but that the lack of scriptural understanding or the deliberate ignoring or twisting of scripture to support a biblically unsupportable position was what concerned him and was what had prompted him to start the blog. I wish “Concerned SBCer” had kept his blog online, it was a very good source of scholarly information on this subject and a good example of what to expect in the public debate of this subject. (You can still read a couple of Concerned SBCer’s posts on Joe Thorn’s blog site: http://www.joethorn.net/2006/07/06/abstinence
-moderation-and-tolerance/)
I just get my brain around this whole concept… it’s absolutely mistifying to me.
One question though. I know many SBC-types…rail against a drop of alcohol….and smoke like chimneys.
Doesn’t the SBC see a dicotomy in this type of thing?
To an outsider it looks like being immersed and abstention from alcohol are what brings a person to salvation…and something’s seriously wrong with that.
Hear ye! Hear ye!
It seems to me that a Christian is free to be bound, free to offend, free to kill, free to strip, free to make obscene gestures, free to do almost anything in the name of Christian freedom.
And yet, in the Bible, we are not to be bound by anything but Christ, are not to offend anyone for any reason, are not to put on the “weights that so easily beset usâ€, and not to live by the Law but by Christ.
Don’t you realize that to list, condone and do specific things such as social drinking (of alcohol), smoking, immodest dress even at the beach, is in fact living by/condoning it by a/the Law when the practice of the principles set forth by Jesus Christ as applied within our culture would forbid them?
What are the benefits of the use of alcohol in our contemporary society? Aside from using it as a solvent for medicine, as a combustion retardant/anti knock agent in fuels, as a environment friendly fuel, I really don’t know of any.
On the other hand, the consumption of the stuff by believers WILL produce more alcoholics, WILL offend other believers, WILL result in more automobile accidents, WILL result in more family breakups, WILL result in more strife ETC.
If Nazarites as a group were not to partake of liquor (no one was compulsed to join them), why can a denomination (which is an extra Biblical group within the universal family of God/Ekklesia) , such as the Southern Baptists, not be free to do likewise?
By the way, the early Southern Baptists were just as Biblical in defending slavery as the contemporary social drinkers are in defending social drinking. Neither is condemned in the Bible in the absence of abuse.
“If Nazarites as a group were not to partake of liquor (no one was compulsed to join them), why can a denomination (which is an extra Biblical group within the universal family of God/Ekklesia) , such as the Southern Baptists, not be free to do likewise?”
Num 6:20 “And the priest shall wave them for a wave offering before Jehovah. This is holy for the priest, with the wave breast and heave shoulder. AND AFTERWARD THE NAZARITE MAY DRINK WINE.”
Do you think the Nazarites would be happy with grape juice either?
Num 6:4 “All the days of his Nazariteship he shall eat NOTHING that is made of the grapevine, from grape seeds even to a stem.”
Or cut his hair. Get with it people. The law is the law. All or nothing. Time to stone your rebellious children and treat your wife as property.
Do we have a newe covenant of not? Is John 2 in the Bible? Is that wine in the LS or are we Muslims?
Is this actually a discussion? Read the Whitfield piece.
There’s a story about a German girl who went to seminary in Ft Worth. Her flight got her to Texas the night before the dorms opened, so a local pastor let her stay with them for the night. At dinner, the pastor’s wife was in horror that the seminary student was having a beer, and the student doubted the pastor’s wife’s salvation, because she was wearing makeup.
ps – the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin is …
I’ve been a United Methodist all my life and grew up in KY. I was taught by my mother and the pastors that drinking, be it beer or wine or whatever, is wrong. When I moved to a southwestern state, I found that some UM church members felt it was okay to have the occasional beer. I was confused. Then I moved to FL and joined a very young but very rapidly-growing UM church. The church members here come from very diverse backgrounds. The majority of them see nothing wrong with drinking “beer and wine, but none of the hard stuff,” – even the ones who came from SBC backgrounds. So, I’m even more confused about that topic, and I have been for the many, many decades of my life.
Maybe it doesn’t really matter and I shouldn’t worry about it.
IN my grandmother’s day (born 1908) she was a teetotaler( she hated even when we brought boxes from the liquor store to pack things) AND a strict observer of the Sunday sabbath – no cooking (done Saturday),no laundry,washing dishes, no buying – all the stores were closed anyway.
Yet the churches were packed, great revival meetings, an enormous community event, took place, and the pagan world took notice- nobody dared shack up.
I don’t know how much bickering was done over the booze issue but overall the church was healthier. What are we missing today?
I agree with many assessments here but I’d trade booze and open-on-Sunday stores to have the church she had.
Bob: I grew up in that world in the 1960s in a small Ky town and I saw it change and go away.
The Gospel that was preached has changed drastically.
The culture doesn’t cooperate- and they shouldn’t- so it’s a different world.
There was a lot of legalism, racism, prejudice and sins that were part of that world that I don’t miss.
I don’t know what to make of the revivals comment. I was part of huge revivals too. It seems to have made little difference in the long or short run.
I miss some of that world and I give them credit for being more Gospel centered in some ways. But I also recognize that a cultural religion isn’t the real thing, at least not in Matthew 23.
And they were wrong about the Bible and moderate alcohol use.
I grew up a Methodist and became a Presbyterian (PCA) in my mid twenties (am now 32). I can appreciate nothing more than a cold beer in the summer, wine with dinner, or a nice toddy in the winter. I understand that alcohol can be easily abused…like anything else. Food, Sex, Money, Power, Prestige, any self indulgence where the biggest idol of our heart is ourself. But to put a constraint on a persons choice when there is no biblical basis or support, makes me think of a works righteousness attitude. In our country right now we allow abortion, encourage homosexuality, easy divorce, no accountability whatsoever, and we are allowing the erosion of our CORE beliefs that God and Christ mandated. I wish we pursued the lost with the same fervor as we blast each other over whether or not we can take a drink. Church leadership at times think that individuals cannot think for themselves nor use sound judgment. If we use the scriptures as a filter (as we should), then we would be neglect in failing to use it in it’s entirety as some are want to do.
Here goes:
1. The Bible never divides the Old Testament law into moral/civil/ceremonial law. Therefore, Christians have no business dividing it up either.
2. Paul makes clear he is not under the law of Moses, but under the law of Christ–1 Cor. 9:20-21. [found in the New Testament]
3. Based off of #1 & #2, all appeals to old testament teaching for the total abstinence position are without merit.
4. In the New Testament, the total abstinence standard for John the Baptist was “particularly” for John the Baptist [a Nazarite standard if I'm not mistaken], not a standard belonging to the law of Christ.
5. To believe that the foundational reason some people “do” or “can” become drunkards is because of a “biological predisposition” is to not believe the biblical teaching that the foundational reason for continuous drunkenness is “sin” in the nonphysical heart. Therefore, the “biological predisposition” view as stated above is not “conservative” [i.e. that which "conserves" the Scriptures].
6. How the “not causing your brother to stumble” admonition should be applied should be left for individual Christians to decide it seems to me. Once Christians begin to say “that means you ‘absolutely’ don’t do this or that particular thing” to other Christians it seems to me they have crossed the line into imposing their “law” upon the consciences of others.
7. All appeals to tradition [i.e., "my Daddy taught me long ago..."] and emotional stories [i.e., "my Dad used to come home drunk and beat..."] in and of themselves are not appeals to biblical authority.
8. I don’t drink at all.
Grace
BCR
In a village six miles from where we live, just four miles from the US border, there stands a pub, owned and operated by the same proprietors from when I was a child. For most of it’s life, it was a men’s joint. Entertainment was male based. It’s customers were male.
On its premises, people were introduced to and induced to lusting, inappropriate behavior, fights. People would enter its premises and leave in a worse condition than when they had entered. Some entered with hard earned money to feed and cloth their family and left drunk with only a hangover to show for what they had. Others had accidents. Still others lost their drivers license because of drunken driving.
Then, because they were forbidden to drive their automobiles, they drove their tractors for their daily drink, and returned home drunk. They drove when it was rainy. They drove when the sun shone brightly. They drove when it was cold and snowing. They had to have their daily fix.
One cold winter night, one of these neighborhood drunks drove off of the ruts in the road with his 44 Massey Harris tractor and got stuck. Because he was too drunk to get to the nearest neighbor, he froze to death, and all because he had a first drink. Hardly a ripple was heard in the community.
The Pub continued to operate as usual. Money continued to flow in while misery, broken lives and death flowed out. The Catholics didn’t care. The Orthodox didn’t care. The Lutherans didn’t care. The Evangelical Christians used to care.
Please don’t tell people of your Christian freedoms when those freedoms have bound millions. When they have been the cause of abuse, rape, fights, broken homes, death and deprivation. Please tell them of Christ instead, WHO SAVES FROM LIQUOR BUT NOT FROM ITS EFFECTS. The next time you think of social drinking consider that your sons and daughters might be its next victims.
Though the Bible does not speak specifically against slavery, the principles as taught by Jesus Christ will ultimately lead to the freedom of all slaves.
Likewise, though the Bible does not speak specifically against social drinking, the principles as taught by Jesus Christ when applied in our society will ultimately lead to the abolition of social drinking and smoking.
In attending a conservative seminary, I at first thought an anti-drinking stance was fine even if I didn’t share it. That was until they openned their mouths to explain it. When they were asked in a meeting to defend it, they characterized it as “a higher moral principle” to which my mind immediately thought: Well, since Jesus drank (John 2, Luke 7:34, Matt 11:19), and by not drinking for a higher moral life, we in fact can consider ourselves more moral than Jesus. Slightly dangerous.
“Likewise, though the Bible does not speak specifically against social drinking, the principles as taught by Jesus Christ when applied in our society will ultimately lead to the abolition of social drinking and smoking.”
Are you saying that the Messiah is gonna have to run bootleg when He returns?…
Luk 22:18 For I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God shall come.
This is just like Dostoevsky’s parable of the Grand Inquisitor. As soon as Christ returns, His church will promptly have Him arrested on several accounts.
I am a Southern Baptist minister in MO, and attended some but not all of the convention. My opinion is that drinking is not the root problem, it is just a byproduct of the real problem. The real problem is modern day Pharisseeism.
I watched in wonder earlier this decade when the Missouri Baptist Convention stopped funding Wiliam Jewell College (my alma mater and that of my pastor great-grandfather), the oldest Baptist institution of higher learning in the state, for teaching evolution in its biology classes. Growing up Missouri Baptist, with familial ties to 3 or 4 regions in the state, I am always fascinated by what the powers-that-be decide they can or cannot live with. I remember the campaign against gambling in the early 1980s, calling the lottery “flim-flam;” oddly enough I do not remember a similar campaign when riverboat gambling appeared.
Of course, I am biased; I left the SBC in the early 1990s when the annual convention passed a resolution stating my salvation was dependent on who I slept with. I am now in leadership in a UCC church, preaching pulpit supply, and thanking God for the opportunity.