Pensees: Alcohol More Harmful Than Ecstasy

The Lancet article is available here. You will need to register (free) to access the full text version. The article is titled. “A rational scale for assessing the harm of drugs of potential misuse.” It is in the March 24, 2007 issue.

Bob:

If you haven’t already, you may be interested in reading Doug Wilson’s article dealing with this very issue, namely, alcohol use versus drug use for the believer. It is entitled, “One Toke over the Line.” He makes case for true Christian Liberty (in alcohol use) while at the same time noting how marijuana use can be biblically condemned.

http://www.christkirk.com/Literature/Marijuana.asp

Bob, I just ran into this blog and hope you don’t censor my post.

Wine and beer contain a drug called ethynol which is beneficial in moderate amounts and harmful when abused. It does have a drug in it. Thanks for pointing that out. So are you against all liquids which have traces of drugs in them or have you chosen selectively that for which you deem harmful? That is ok if you do, but I’m hoping you are at least consistent. Like the don’t-go-to-the-theater view, while renting them at home.

Second, do you believe that a codeine buzz, a runners high, a caffeine upper, a melatonin downer, a nyquil plaster, a puppy love flutter, or an orgasm buzz in moderation and under Biblically prescribed rules to be sinful?

Trying to just figure out if you are a Gnostic Christian, a Cerenthian Christian, or just a contemporary Essene.

Bob, I appreciate your stand on this issue. Sometimes it is difficult to defend such a position in theoretical/intellectual/theological discussion, however the wreckage of wasted lives should be enough reason to avoid this particular vice. I deal with college students who are many times very enthralled with what the world has to offer. They don’t quite understand the word ‘moderation’ and underestimate the influence that this drug can have. Many leaders who speak positively about the benefits of ‘social drinking’ do not understand how such comments are understood and applied by our young people.

Hopefully Coach, Bob doesn’t hold to your position. If one cannot defend a position “theoretically, intellectually, or theologically” than what is left is a non-intellectually, non-theological, non-scriptural position. It is based on personal feeling, or I-know-someone-who-abused-it logic, which could hold to anything.

I completely respect anyone who personally abstains from alcohol. I know people who personally abstain from caffeine. However, using such strong and at time vitriolic language against something who drinks in moderation is more destructive to our “young people” than alcohol ever will be. I would venture to say if statistics are correct that more of our younger generation is leaving the Christianity because of the unscriptural views and personal pet soap boxes of our church leaders than ever will because of alcoholism.

What our generation needs are people who hold to Scripture alone in its literal interpretation. That will transform our culture.

Brent, maybe you missunderstood. I did not say that an argument against alcohol could not be made from a theoretical/intellectual/theological point of view. I believe it can. I also do not embrace the “alcohol is the greatest evil ever foisted about our society” line of thinking (Billy Sunday, etc.). My point is that sometimes those of us in leadership become a stumbling block to those less mature in the faith. We need to be aware that even if Scripture allows for the use of alcohol in moderation, we must be careful how our statements to that affect are received and applied. The Apostle Paul certainly knew that there was nothing really wrong with eating meat offered to idols, yet he understood the implications of eating such meat in the company of certain people.
Personally, I believe that there is a more compelling case to avoid alcohol made from the socio/health/financial viewpoint than what we find in Scripture. One such reason for me, while it might be biblically okay for me to have Miller Light in the fridge, I do not want to take the chance that one of my children will become comfortable around alcohol to the point that they someday become enslaved to it.
It may be that I am more sensitive to this issue because I live in a town that has the largest number of bars per capita in the US, a high percentage of fetal alcohol syndrome, children are allowed in bars, and our munincipal judge has been reelected for 25 years because everyone knows that he gives the minimum sentence to DUI offenders. He himself has been arrested twice for DUI.
The heartache caused by caffeine and even nicotine does not even compare to the lives ruined by alcohol.

Coach, that is reasonable and probably at many levels I would agree with you. I think I just see an overall difference in leadership philosophy.

I have a church full of ex-drug dealers, ex-strippers, wicca, ex-convicts, ex-alcoholics in one of the least churched cities in the country, Seattle. The solution to these people’s lives is the gospel, not leadership inflicted protection rules. Part of our role in leadership is not to be satisfied with people’s immaturity. Your kid analogy is great, accept we shouldn’t be satisfied with keeping people children forever. To hold to set extra-Biblical alcohol rules for life is like telling an adult they still have to go to bed at 10:00 like they did in high school so they will be sure to get up in time for work. It says it is ok to be spiritually immature if you would like. It’s kind of silly. Martin Luther said people abuse wine, women, and the stars. Should we get rid of women, or pull the stars from heaven so no one worships them?

Paul did not set universally prescribed standards, but used common sense depending on the context. If you read Galatians you see almost an opposite picture of I Cor. or Romans. I don’t drink with alcoholics, and I tell them if you are one be real about it and act like the adult you are. I have never once in all my years of drinking ever seen or heard of a Christian falling into alcoholism because they saw a Miller in another Christian’s fridge. These seem like speculative posibilities that force people to live a life of fear rather than faith.

Frankly, I think one would hold a better argument against people having the internet since it has a much higher abuse rate than alcohol. However, I respect your position as primarily a personal conscience thing and overall concern you have for alcohol abuse. God bless.

Thanks for the charitable discussion, Brent. I guess that I agree with the conclusion of the “teetotaller” (no alcohol, except medicinal), but not always the argument. God bless.

I agree theologically that there isn’t a verse that condemns alcohol. It even has medicinal values. Now, can someone explain how social drinking benefits my testimony? Mind you, I am in the US, not a country like Germany which may or may not be different based on your point of view.

Still, I have never heard a good reason to drink as a Christian in the US and a multitude of reasons not to drink. I think that we should apply Paul’s teaching in Romans 14 here. It may not be condemned specifically, but as there are plenty of reason why it can harm my testimony and cause brethren to stumble, I’ll pass and recommend others to do the same.

So what are you talking about when you say “hurt your testimony”. I am in Seattle, and whenever I invite someone to my house it is pretty standard that they bring a bottle of wine out of cultural kindness. Wine is not an issue here. In fact in many places in this country it is the same way. I have never met a non-Christian who thought it was wrong for a Christian to drink alcohol, but many who thought it was silly for a Christian not to. Non-Christians believe drunkenness and abuse is wrong, and would see a Christian drunk as a bad testimony.

The only testimony issues Christians have are with weaker brother Christians from very religious backgrounds who have been taught their whole lives of the inherant evil of alcohol and thereby are falsely bound by their consciences.

Christians hurt their testimony more with the non-believing world when we hold to irrational or ascetic standards that intelligent people can see right through. Not drinking can kill your testimony if your reasons are silly. A good reason to drink is the same as a good reason to play Xbox Games or Texas Holdem. This is what normal people do in our secular culture in social settings. To love them is at time to participate with them in their world as long as what they are doing is not clearly sin. If your non-believing friends invite you to a Texas Holdem party and you go and tell everyone you don’t believe in playing Texas Holdem then you might as well have slapped them in the face. You think they will say, “Hey, there is something oddly different about him. He rejects Texas Holdem and thereby participation with us. Wow, I want to follow his Jesus.” That is not how it works.

Brent,

Thank you for your comments. I don’t “censure” comments even when/if they are extremely insulting (which yours wasn’t, of course) unless they are outright blasphemous or attack my family (as some have).

There are so many things that you say that are right that it is complicated for me to answer lest I undermine the truths that we mutually hold. However, you sound very much to me like the typical American ex-fundamentalist that seems to have a binary perspective on issues: 1/ either we are a legalistic teetotoaler or we have to champion the right to drink.

I don’t think either option is acceptable.

As strongly as I feel about strong drink, we do not have it in our church constitution, I do not preach it from the pulpit, and there are people in our congregation who use their liberty to drink wine occasionally. I have very strong feelings about it, but I am not so “wise in my own opinion” that I use the “sacred desk” and “pastoral authority” to enforce my conviction in this area because I do realize that a “law” concerning this does impinge on Christian liberty which — and this is worse — could undermine the gospel.

Our church is full of ex-whatevers too. And they love the fact that I will restrain myself from making a law even though I passionately bolster their courage to totally abstain by my personal and vigorous hatred for the beverage because of its overall negative effect on humanity. They know that my love for the gospel is even stronger than my hatred for strong drink.

I am not superstitious about “alcohol.” I take Ny-quil. I even drank cider in Europe that had 2 or 3 % alcohol content without any qualm of conscience. Since I’d have to drink a whole bottle in one sitting to get drunk - a physical impossibilty for me - I would take a glass when it was offered. I drank wine for communion when occasion demanded it. There were even a couple of occasions when I had no option but to accept what was given to me for drink and I sipped tiny sips throughout the night just to wet my parched tongue. I didn’t feel like I was deflining my conscience. So, I don’t have a legalistic paranoia about the drink.

I do not think that the contact of strong drink to one’s lips is sin. As Jesus said, it is what that is on the inside of man, not the outside, that contaminates him. I don’t think it’s sin.

I think it is stupid. I do not understand the passionate defenders of the drink who cannot get the bigger picture because they think that all total abstainers have too small a picture. Actually, some of us see a much BIGGER picture.

Your talk of the culture of Seattle is so predictable. I ministered in France the wine country of the world and namesake of Cognac, had close ministerial friends who drank, and was often in conversation with people about strong drink. That is a culture that is much more into drink than Seattle could ever be and my total abstinence made sense to people, particularly to unbelievers.

It is simplistic to say that the culture drinks socially. The BIGGER p;icture is that the culture is drunk. Seattle is 13th in the nation for drunkeness even though it ranks far lower as one of the larger cities in America. Washington State is one of the only states that has tried dto curb its drunkeness by the so-called “Alcohol Impact Areas.” Its own sociologist know that drunkenness is a scourge.

People love to use Jesus as their model, saying that the Pharisees called him a “winebibber,” but what they deliberately ignore is that all the evidence proves that the wine of Jesus day was differentiated from the strong drink of his day and the strong drink was not near as strong as it is today. They also ignore that in that particular passage, Jesus is contrasted to John the Baptist, yes, but John the Baptist’s policy of total abstinence was not condemned as wrong by our Lord. In fact, John was considered by Jesus to be the greatest of prophets.

Increasingly, more and more people in society are seeing the value of total abstinence, attempting it, and highly admire the people who have the courage to do it, particularly when they will simultaneously declare that any person has the liberty to do it without threatening his standing before his God.

They admire that. The only scorn I ever endured (and I was around many drinkers) was from believers who automatically stereo-typed me as a legalist and who were prepared to spend a lot of energy to defend their right to drink.

They have a right to drink. And I have a right to say it’s stupid, extremely short-sighted, and earthbound.

Bob,
Very good response. I appreciate your attempt at balancing what you believe and how it may be projected from the pulpit. I love that you call drinking “stupid”, because it shows how passionate you are against it. I can respect that.

I want to be clear. I am not pro-drinking. I am pro-Sola Scriptura. Drinking just happens to be the red light that makes it clear who is and isn’t truly for Scriptural integrity. Yes, your strong anti-alcohol position smells of my Fundamentalist roots being one of many non-scriptural positions used to bind men’s consciences. I would be as passionate in this conversation if we were debating women wearing the color red, as I am about alcohol.

Concerning your reasons for being against it, I think they are smoke screens for a truer reason you aren’t saying.

1) Abuse. Today, the Jews have one of the highest alcohol drinking rates in the country since every Jewish child begins drinking by 12, yet the lowest alcohol abuse rate in the world. Why? They see alcohol for what it is, a gift from God to be enjoyed. Alcohol is not the problem, people are.

2) Watered Down Wine. Wow! This is the silliest argument ever invented by Fundamentalists to justify their position. I know of no respectable scholarship who hold to this. God himself described good wine mixed with water as his as punishment to Israel. The worst threat you could make to Israel was to tell them I am going to put water in your wine. Nasty (Isa. 1:22). Study the Jews own views of wine and their history and they will say this view is bull.

So Bob, why the passion against alcohol when statistics show only 6 to 10 percent of drinkers are addicts, instead of being against the internet where 40 percent are porn addicts?

Brent, thanks.

Just for the sake of clarity before I respond:

Are you saying that the two reasons you mentioned are what you suspect to be my “real” reasons that are smokescreened by other reasons? Or, are you saying that they are the smokescreen reasons?

Also, I said nothing about “watered-down” wine.

I will not argue with you that fundamentalism has often bound men’s consciences unneccessarily and with poor reasoning, but I would like you to explain to me what you mean by “bind men’s consciences.”

What is the effect of a “bound conscience?”

Finally, do I know you? Do we have connections however minimal? Am I right to think PA?

God bless.

Bob,
I don’t think I know you, but I did go to high school in PA. That would be wierd. I accidentally ran across your blog, but I didn’t know we had connections.

1) What I meant by smoke screen is possibly using weak Biblical arguments to support a belief that is inherently personal. Saying the abuse of alcohol or the supposed difference between wine in the ancient day as opposed today doesn’t make sense as a reason for being so strong against something like alcohol. Obesity is the number one killer in America. 1 in 3 Christian men are struggling with porn in our churches. How many people in your Christians circles are alcoholics? I doubt many, yet alcohol is attacked. I just don’t get it. I think it stems from a Christian sub-cultural bias.

2) Binding a conscience is the act of claiming something to be wrong, thereby adding to God’s law. This puts people at a greater risk to sin because if they break their conscience they sin. Before they had 10 commandments to break their conscience and now they have several dozen more rules to increase their guilt. I know many people who came from that religious oppression and it had very destructive affects in their spiritual life.

Colossians 2:20-23 20 Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: 21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22 These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. 23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

Gnostic and ascetic Christians were coming to Paul’s followers and telling them good Christians don’t drink wine, don’t eat certain foods, and go to church only on certain days. Paul says not to listen to people who make up laws God didn’t says. These man-made protection rules do nothing to protect people against “self-indulgence”. Let the Holy Spirit govern people’s hearts through his clearly written law, and not try to stop sin through external man-made rules.

Anyway, Bob I guess I have run this into the ground. I will pull out of this discussion. I am sure you love Jesus, so this is an in-the-family debate which will probably never end until Jesus comes back.

God bless you and your ministry.

Well it is scripturally clear God intended John to abstain from wine and hard liquor for life because he was “filled with the holy spirit.” I would assume that prescrption if written today would be abstain from all drugs.

I am one of those people who cannot drink or take drugs. I become unbalanced mentally and spiritually. I am as God knew John to be whilst John was still in the womb (check the reference).

I do not believe all need abstain. But, I work as a criminal lawyer and it is the rare case of crime of violence that does not proceed from drugs and alcohol. With violence in the family, it is almost always alcohol. As Christians, we need to ask ourselves if we now are in a context where different concerns regarding alcohol apply that those at the time the bible was written. For instance, we no longer stone people to death. Also, the old testament was written for a certain group: the jews have a low rate of alcoholism and drug addiction.

The natives in my country (Canada) have a high one: if I am ministering to natives, should I not say abstain from all intoxicants? Can I justify perpetuation of sex assaults, incests, violence, broken families, Fetal alcohol syndrome just to promote the christian idea it is okay to drink occasssionally when the evidence is that this community is largely one of alcoholics - John the Baptsists, who cannot engage in controlled drinking of any kind?

Also, remember, in Jewish life drinking was really only acceptable for certain celebration. Now, people go out to get drunk and get killed or kill someone. I defend these guys all the time. But for the alcohol, things would have been different.

Our church has a street outreach program and we are anglican - anglo-catholic. I am interested in your views on the above as I am involved in the ministry although it is headed by a priest.

Thnaks in advance
Karen

Well it is scripturally clear God intended John to abstain from wine and hard liquor for life because he was “filled with the holy spirit.” I would assume that prescrption if written today would be abstain from all drugs.

I am one of those people who cannot drink or take drugs. I become unbalanced mentally and spiritually. I am as God knew John to be whilst John was still in the womb (check the reference).

I do not believe all need abstain. But, I work as a criminal lawyer and it is the rare case of crime of violence that does not proceed from drugs and alcohol. With violence in the family, it is almost always alcohol. As Christians, we need to ask ourselves if we now are in a context where different concerns regarding alcohol apply that those at the time the bible was written. For instance, we no longer stone people to death. Also, the old testament was written for a certain group: the jews have a low rate of alcoholism and drug addiction.

The natives in my country (Canada) have a high one: if I am ministering to natives, should I not say abstain from all intoxicants? Can I justify perpetuation of sex assaults, incests, violence, broken families, Fetal alcohol syndrome just to promote the christian idea it is okay to drink occasssionally when the evidence is that this community is largely one of alcoholics - John the Baptsists, who cannot engage in controlled drinking of any kind?

Also, remember, in Jewish life drinking was really only acceptable for certain celebration. Now, people go out to get drunk and get killed or kill someone. I defend these guys all the time. But for the alcohol, things would have been different.

Our church has a street outreach program and we are anglican - anglo-catholic. I am interested in your views on the above as I am involved in the ministry although it is headed by a priest.

Thnaks in advance
Karen

Well it is scripturally clear God intended John to abstain from wine and hard liquor for life because he was “filled with the holy spirit.” I would assume that prescrption if written today would be abstain from all drugs.

I am one of those people who cannot drink or take drugs. I become unbalanced mentally and spiritually. I am as God knew John to be whilst John was still in the womb (check the reference).

I do not believe all need abstain. But, I work as a criminal lawyer and it is the rare case of crime of violence that does not proceed from drugs and alcohol. With violence in the family, it is almost always alcohol. As Christians, we need to ask ourselves if we now are in a context where different concerns regarding alcohol apply that those at the time the bible was written. For instance, we no longer stone people to death. Also, the old testament was written for a certain group: the jews have a low rate of alcoholism and drug addiction.

The natives in my country (Canada) have a high one: if I am ministering to natives, should I not say abstain from all intoxicants? Can I justify perpetuation of sex assaults, incests, violence, broken families, Fetal alcohol syndrome just to promote the christian idea it is okay to drink occasssionally when the evidence is that this community is largely one of alcoholics - John the Baptsists, who cannot engage in controlled drinking of any kind?

Also, remember, in Jewish life drinking was really only acceptable for certain celebration. Now, people go out to get drunk and get killed or kill someone. I defend these guys all the time. But for the alcohol, things would have been different.

Our church has a street outreach program and we are anglican - anglo-catholic. I am interested in your views on the above as I am involved in the ministry although it is headed by a priest.

Thnaks in advance
Karen