Drinking and Spiritual Leadership

I’m biased, perhaps? But this seems like a solid argument to me.

To get a 215 pound man to the level of drunkenness spoken of in Proverbs 23, about .15-.2% (judging by the effects), we're talking about nine beers, two full bottles of wine, or 400ml (about half of a fifth) of hard liquor. Even the legal limit--about half that--takes some doing.

So the notion that people "easily slide" into drunkenness is false--a few might, the first couple of times they drink, miss the "mouth feel" of the alcohol in something like a strongly poured rum & coke (say around 18% alcohol), but even in that case, you're talking about 1.5 liters of it. Shouldn't that raise questions of gluttony, not to mention "with that much sugar, does the word 'diabetes' mean anything to you?"?

If someone doesn't want to drink, that's fine, but let's not use specious arguments against it, please.

The author of the article isn't talking about Proverbs 23. Nor is he defining drunkenness.

When one's ox is being gored, the yelps come.

If we're going to say that one can "easily slide into drunkenness", wouldn't it be a good thing to actually define it, Don? And perhaps we ought to start with how Scripture describes the concept? The fact that the author does not define his terms does not mean they do not have a definition, after all.

And then if Proverbs 31 describes drunkenness in terms of what happens at about .15-.2% BAC, wouldn't it be edifying to see if it really is possible to easily drink that much? And if it's not possible to do so easily, maybe we jettison the argument that it's easy to "slide into drunkenness"? And maybe how that corresponds to secular knowledge about where the effects of too much alcohol are shown?

It's sad to see people who are theoretically fundamental in their theology abandon the authority of Scripture when wine is the whipping boy.

Let the yelping continue.

I don't think you are getting the point of the article.

No, I'm getting the point, and I'm saying that it's profoundly misguided because a key claim made is false. The volume of liquor required to get seriously drunk is such that it's not easy to become drunk. It's intentional.

Really, in general, a lot of pro-abstinence arguments are based on false claims, and it does the cause of Christ no good to repeat them.

You are blowing up an aside into the "key claim." That is some kind of propaganda technique, I'm guessing you can give the technical name for it.

The article is arguing against alcohol as a wisdom issue. You don't really want to deal with the argument of the article (it appears) so you attack the "key claim" that you think is its weak point.

Of course, every time this issue is raised here, we can count on you to raise your voice in opposition. It's not a surprise.

If alcohol is a "wisdom issue", then what the proponent needs to establish is that the likely consequence of drinking is sinful behavior. Like it or not, that happens when a line is crossed between responsible drinking and drunkenness.

Since a large volume of alcohol needs to be drunk before someone gets drunk (as the very etamology of the word would indicate), that means that, apart from intent to get drunk, the likelihood of drunkenness is low--and hence the author's central argument fails.

It's not that complicated, Don. Fundagelicals are too prone to recycling arguments against "Demon Rum" that have no basis in fact, like "slide into drunkenness", "today's wine is 10x stronger than Biblical wine", and a lot more. Yes, I point this out a lot, as often as supposed fundamentalists do violence to the Scriptures.

You might consider not being the provocation, Don. Let's jettison nonsense arguments against wine.

Bert, I have very little experience with alcohol in my own body although I have way too much experience with alcohol on those around me. After watching my dad and growing up in the bar, I decided not to drink- thus little experience of alcohol on my own body.

I do not want to put words in your mouth, but it sounds like you are saying that if a person gets drunk, they should not be making any excuses for it happening. In other words, they should not say it was just a mistake that crept up on them. If that is the case, then it appears that you are actually holding people to a pretty high standard and would have no time for someone trying to excuse their drunkenness. I can really respect that.

Growing up around the bar, I saw people making decisions for drunkenness. I also saw people being careless who should have known better. I believe many people got drunk without "planning" to, but in each case, they were negligent in exercising personal responsibility. My mom was a godly woman who would occasionally have a drink (a single drink- only one the whole night) along with food. I do not ever remember seeing the effects of alcohol in her life. Later in life she did stop drinking as she saw how much it was affecting my dad and then once dad was gone, she saw no reason to drink again.

I do not remember witnessing my mother's parents drinking, but they would talk about drinking blackberry brandy before bed. They believed it helped them sleep better. I do not know if it really helped their sleep or not, but I never witnessed the effects of alcohol on their lives either. They essentially took it medicinally and since they went to sleep right away there would be no effects to witness.

I bring these things up to show that there were huge differences between how my mother and her parents used alcohol compared to my bar dwelling father. I think Bert is trying to make that point. I am personally not as comfortable around alcohol as Bert is (I do not drink it), but I want to give him credit for not making excuses for those who get drunk. We need more of that kind of boldness in holding people accountable for drunkenness. I fear that the "just don't drink" argument can sometimes distract us from how evil it is for people to fall into drunkenness.

JD, that's a good way of phrasing things.

One thing I'd add is that Biblically speaking, the word for "drunk" is used with the word for "gluttony" repeatedly, and that makes sense. If I were to illustrate the point I've been making in church (or elsewhere), I'd illustrate the amounts of liquor needed to get drunk with cans of Mountain Dew, a Super Big Gulp, and then finally, a large Starbucks drink with caramel and cream.

I'd say "if you're a 200 lb man and you're drinking beer, this is how much you'd have to drink. Notice that this is Mountain Dew and not beer, and that's not just because the church doesn't allow alcohol in its doors. It's because this Mountain Dew has about the same calories as the beer. Can you say 'diabetes and obesity'?"

Then I'd do the same with the Super Big Gulp for wine, and for the Starbucks drink for hard liquor, and I'd say to the congregation "If you have a healthy relationship with other foods, your relationship with alcohol is also likely to be benign. If you are prone to gluttony with foods and drinks, you will be prone to drunkenness if you drink alcohol. If you want to avoid a host of problems--obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, drunkenness, cirrhosis--your best course is to learn moderation with anything that enters your mouth.".

Or, as Ecclesiastes 10:17 notes, Blessed are you, O land, whose king is a son of nobles, and whose princes feast at the proper time—for strength and not for drunkenness. Food ought to be enjoyed, but not riotously.

If you want to avoid a host of problems--obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, drunkenness, cirrhosis--your best course is to learn moderation with anything that enters your mouth.".

One of my big concerns about the "all alcohol is sin" approach is that it tends to circumvent so much teaching about self control. We see a similar problem with the "all immodesty will make you stumble" approach. It does not teach the importance of a man taking personal responsibility over his thoughts and actions.

When kids grow up hearing that the only thing they need to know about alcohol is that they need to avoid it, they do not learn the importance of taking responsibility if they do use it. I personally hope my children chose not to drink at all. That is what I chose, but I also understand that they will be exposed to the reality that there is no verse in the Bible that says "thou shalt not drink alcohol." Now for years we have debated here on SI about if we should take other principles into consideration. I am not looking to reopen that debate here. What I do want to point out is that my children and yours will be exposed to that debate and there is no guarantee what side of that debate they will fall on. We need to do more to prepare them with what the Bible teaches about alcohol and how it was regulated as it was used and why drunkenness is so clearly condemned.

I do not expect my children will chose to partake. Part of the reason is because it is not held up as the forbidden fruit, thus making it more enticing. I do not teach them that it is sinful, but I do teach them that it is dangerous if abused and that is why I avoid it. To them that seems like a good idea to avoid it too. If, however, they change their minds at some point, they have already been instructed about the dangers and have a bit of an awareness about it. They already understand that if they do chose to partake, they need to do so very responsibly. They also understand the importance of not making others stumble.

As a pastor, I am not only teaching these important principles to my children, but also to my congregation. As difficult as it is to make a child follow every idea you have, it is even more difficult to do that with other people in the pews. I want those I minister to, to be able to face the challenges of life even if they do not approach those challenges in the way I do. God's word equips them, so I teach them that. God's word has a lot to say about how to drink alcohol. I do not want to pretend that those verses are no longer needed today. That does not mean that I encourage drinking, but it does mean that I teach about it.

One of my big concerns about the "all alcohol is sin" approach is that it tends to circumvent so much teaching about self control.

JD, the article is about a wisdom approach, not an "all alcohol is sin" approach.

While I personally would have a hard time saying all alcohol is sin, the fact is that it is extremely unwise for many reasons. Those who want to justify it are determined to be unwise.

.....when Jesus made six jugs of wine in John 2, was He unwise, Don?

Sorry, but your logic leads to blasphemy. Just like there is a legitimate use to Mountain Dew and coffee, about a third of the references to wine in Scripture are of it being a blessing. A third speak of it being a fact of life, and about a third warn about drunkenness. In the same way, I can speak of Mountain Dew--or butter, or any other food--in roughly the same three categories.

Just by the spoken word, then maybe you have an argument.

The article is about wisdom for us.

....does it mean when God's Word tells us to be Godly, Christlike, and the like? And what does the word "Christian" mean, again?

Really, the argument "to be a good Christian, you should abstain from the blessings that our Lord pours out and avoid acting like Him in certain ways" seems to have a wee little weakness in it.

Bert, does Christlikeness mean imitating every action Christ did while on earth?

...we ought to have a very good reason to decide that we ought NOT follow His example in everything, no? Yes, there are certain things that God has not given me the power to do, but in this matter, we know He kept the party going, and He was well known for taking advantage of the foods and wines set before him, as in Matthew 11:19.

Again, stating that it's a "wisdom issue" to abstain from blessings that Jesus enjoyed and even spoke into existence is, if not outright blasphemy, closer than I want to be to it.

This angle of argumentation is really ludicrous. It doesn't follow, and it doesn't address the issues raised in the post.

The thesis is that using alcohol today is unwise. The article gives a few reasons why this is so. There are others.

You are trying to change the subject and confuse the argument as usual. You don't wish to deal with the substance.

I can argue that it is not a sin to drink and still make a case why it is unwise to drink. I do agree that there is wisdom in abstaining. That is why I abstain myself. I do not however want to go to the point of saying someone is a fool if they do drink. I also do not want to suggest that someone who drinks is more Christlike than those who do not drink. I also believe that someone can partake of alcohol and still be Christlike. They cannot however be drunken and be Christlike. Just because a choice strives for wisdom, that does not automatically mean that the opposite choice would be foolish. I understand that some would disagree with that statement, but that premise shapes much of my view on this subject.

Don, when you look through the Scriptures in context, it's really one claim, that it's easy to slip into drunkenness when one drinks. Let's look at the Scriptures:

Proverbs 31:4-5, for example warns that kings who drink might forget what has been decreed--the law, really. In context, one forgets things when one has been drinking....a lot. It's referring not to drinking wine or strong drink at any level, but rather the level at which thinking is seriously impaired--i.e. drunkenness. And really, all of the arguments the author presents are basically assuming that the average drinker will get to a point where their thinking is impaired--or in Biblical terms, they are drunk.

We might say that "wisdom issue" is a rhetorical sleight of hand where the author is basically saying that we ought to treat a behavior as sin when Scripture speaks of its proper use as a blessing. Please stop.

Bert that is ridiculous. There isn’t “really one claim”. However, I’m not going to debate you any further on this.

You aren’t engaging with the article at all. I guess that doesn’t matter, this is SI after all. But that is what I was pointing out.

What your protests show to me is that you are desperate to be right so you can keep up your booze habit

Go back to a central passage the article uses, Proverbs 31:4-5, and ask yourself at what point someone starts forgetting things when he's drinking, Don. Hint; it's not with the first sip, or even the first glass, of wine. The central passage used by the author is talking about drunkenness, and hence the pictures from Proverbs 23 are applicable.

(never mind this: since when does an author, or those sympathetic to him, get to claim that an additional point of reference is out of bounds?)

Hence my point holds. The central claim of the article, in view of the texts cited, is exactly as I stated, and since it takes some work and (almost always) intent to get drunk, that central notion is false. And with that, the notion that it is inherently "unwise" to drink wine in any quantity is false.

Guys, we have been doing this at SI for over 10 years. Let’s just agree to disagree! Having said that, I will never drink because it’s extraordinarily unwise.

>>Guys, we have been doing this at SI for over 10 years. Let’s just agree to disagree! Having said that, I will never drink because it’s extraordinarily unwise.<<

Yeah, it’s not like the strategy of saying “Stop!” then throwing a bomb into the discussion hasn’t been tried in SI’s lifetime either…

On the other hand, I got my humor for the morning!

I threw that in on purpose as a joke!

>>I threw that in on purpose as a joke!<<

Yeah, I half-suspected. You’ve been around this site long enough! :)