Beer and wine use among Christians
I know where I stand on this issues. Drinking was in common place in the early church but obviously getting drunk was being a every day drunkard was not acceptable. Martin Luther and John Calvin and the Catholics believed it was a gift of God. It still is considered that by most in Christianity today used in moderation. Having said that it is not acceptable to get intoxicated in the worship service but moderate use should be acceptable in feasts and social gatherings.
Abuses mostly by the world led certain feminists into pushing their own views on everyone through dominionist laws while most of the men were off to war. It ended in prohibition and those laws only brought in bootlegging and major organized crime.
We have these same feminists and legalistic people in some churches today who twist scripture to make it say what they want it to say rather than what it actually says. All wine in the days of the early church had some alcohol content since their was no refrigeration. One of the major problems of the church in our generation is this feminization of the church. There is simply nothing wrong with having a couple beers or some wine in order for men to mellow out with each other in social situations in this very difficult world. The medical community has documented published papers on the benefits of moderate amounts of alcohol. Beer and wine are simply given by God for man’s use not abuse.
If you believe it is a sin to use alcohol or it causes you to sin then it is a sin for you to use it. However, to dictate your unique twisting of scripture to the the rest of the church is actually doing more harm then good.
Lansing State Journal: Holt ministry celebrates its love of God - and beer
Early Protestant reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin didn’t just tolerate alcohol, said the Rev. Jim West, author of “Drinking with Calvin and Luther!” “They reveled in it as a gift of God,” he said.Luther “would talk about drinking wine and beer as imparting joy to the human heart,” he said. Calvin said it was permissible to drink wine “to make us merry.”
And for centuries, he said, drinking was basically a non-issue in Protestant churches. In the United States, opposition to alcohol in Protestant churches didn’t begin in earnest until the 1800s, growing up around the temperance and, later, prohibition movements.
Still, many Protestants believe that drinking alcohol is a sin.
Date posted: Monday, March 3rd, 2008 9:53 am | Under category: Health, irrational
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I agree with you on the alcohol issue. I don’t drink anymore myself but the decision to abstain has always been something deeply personal and I don’t look down on people who do drink.
Even though I don’t agree with crusading against alcohol, I do feel horrified at the excessive alcohol abuse of many people, especially those among my generation here. It is just incredible. In fact the majority of the older generation here are in favor of raising the legal drinking age to 18 because of the extreme drinking behavior among teenagers. The vast majority of youngsters have already drunk too much alcohol before they have reached the age of 12. From what I’ve seen when I was younger, 14-year olds and even 12-year olds are allowed by their parents to go out to party like 16 and 17 year olds do and obviously they get drunk. I’ve rarely been to any parties myself but quite frankly I can tell you it’s all just about drinking, drinking and drinking until they drop (and in some cases you can add sex and stuff like that to the list). And sometimes “drop” is to be taken literally. Lately there’s been a trend here I’ve heard to drink until you are unconscious or even get in a coma. Yes, a *trend*. The cause of this problem is with a lack of parental supervision or responsiblity, and the fact that lots of parents simply like to get drunk themselves and can’t drink with moderation.
Oh, and as far as women are concerned, those freaking members of the superior feminin race are NOT better than their inferior male counterparts at all, my undear Feminazis. In fact, women and alcohol are like a nightmare. They get violent, aggressive, sexually unrestrained and totally uncontrolled. They just loose all decency and prudence (that is, if they had any to begin with). Drunk women are just awful. Let alone when they start nagging while they’re drunk. Better make sure you get out or you might get a glass in your face.
Anyway, as you correctly said, there’s nothing wrong with drinking in moderation. It’s good to abstain if you have trouble drawing the limit or for medical reasons. I also don’t think it’s wrong to abstain for cultural reasons, but you should always realize it’s not a sin to drink and therefore you should not impose your behavior on others. Drunkeness and addiction to alcohol obviously are sins and I think parents have a great deal of responsibility in teaching their children how to deal with alcohol in moderation and with a sense of decency.
In this country the legal drinking age is 21. Frankly, I think if you are old enough to fight and die for your country you are old enough to drink.
Kids get drunk because parents have lost control of them. Part of the reason for that is parents are too permissive and part of the reason is that the state will no longer allow parents to discipline their children as they should. Of course, peer pressure and media have a lot to do with it as well. But, there again if we had proper parental control kids would not be watching and listening to the crap they do and schools would be as disciplined as the homes ought to be.
We blame the substance kids use for them being out of control, rather then seeing that because they are out of control they get drunk and use substances. The real problem is undisciplined children and our permissive society.
In France lots of young people start drinking at a young age because it’s quite common among the French to drink wine with meals. I think it’s got to be like that in many Mediterranean countries. From what I’ve read though, excessive alcohol use is not so common among Italians or the French, but is far more common in Belgium, Ireland and the UK among others.
So yes, I agree that at the end most of these issues in life are all a question of individual responsiblity and have a lot to do with the way we’ve been taught to deal with things. Prohibition and strong laws rarely work for as a solution for problems like these because gov’t contributed to a lack of parental authority and societal control (not involving the gov’t that is) on youngsters in the first place. It’s like those laws in Britain against antisocial behavior. Youth being reprimanded by elderly people for not behaving get scoffed at or even get beat up these days! No matter how many laws you push, they’re not going to solve anything. I think if society and gov’t were more family-oriented that society would deal with a lot of these punks without the need of gov’t. But oh well, gov’t considers spanking to be mistreatment these days. But minors get away with beating, threatening or robbing grown ups. Gov’t is antisocial!
Tell people they can’t do something and it becomes the forbidden fruit.
I think now that so man kids are already out of control the only way to get the young people under control is to give power back to men that live in the neighborhoods and the men have to be backed up by the police instead of being hindered by them. In some areas of the world they respect their elders because if they did not the men of the village would firmly resolve the issue.
In some old fasion families the kids are very respectful because their dad would slap them silly if they were not. It is amazing how much a little discipline early in life does wonders to bring up good kids.
I totally agree on that. I had to be spanked a lot when I was a kid and I don’t regret my parents did. There’s a huge difference between spanking and hitting a child. Spanking is done with restraint, it is done out of love to encourage the child to be good and learn from its mistakes. On the other hand, a parent may hit his child out of frustration or out of selfishness to force a kid to do things that may not even be good. Of course our superintelligent politicians are too enlightened to see the difference. What you wrote about the elders reminded me of what Torah says:
“If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and who, when they have chastened him, will not heed them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city, to the gate of his city. And they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones; so you shall put away the evil from among you, and all Israel shall hear and fear. — Deuteronomy 21:18-21
This command sure was a very severe one and I doubt it was carried out a lot. I think it was meant to make parents realize they have great responsiblity to set a good example themselves, and of course to encourage youngsters to walk by God’s ways rather than to perish. This passage shows God takes the way parents raise their children very seriously.
On the alcohol issue, raising the legal drinking age here surely is not a solution and so far there have been no serious moves to raise it. A poll revealed many elderly think it ought to be raised but rather I think they simply want something to be done about the excessive drinking among teenagers. However, as long as people keep rejecting Christ, I don’t think anything is going to change. When this generation replaces the current already morally bankrupt political generation and other powerful people, you can be sure it’s only about to get worse.