Legalism in the SBC

…..about why American churches (including those now liberal—the Methodists led the fight for Prohibition, by and large) have opposed alcohol since the mid-1800s is because that was a time when U.S. farmland was incredibly productive, but market was typically hundreds or thousands of miles away. Solution; convert your corn into whiskey and take it to New Orleans on a flatboat.

Problem; lots of whisky around for bored people at home and on the flatboat, as taking a flatboat down the Ohio/Mississippi is not the most exciting work. Result: people becoming alcoholics and falling into the river. (side note; those who did not fall into the river are big reason feminism and prohibition were linked back then—many early feminists were simply ticked that their alcoholic husbands beat them after squandering the harvest and losing the farm and the like)

[WallyMorris]

The only point Bert has demonstrated is that Christians can drink wine coolers since they are “diluted”. Otherwise, you still have to dilute wine to compare to Biblical times. And one reason people were referred to as barbarians was because they purposely didn’t dilute their drink in order to get drunk. Christians today who wish to let others think they are following Biblical examples must dilute their wine or other “mild” drink, or else they are just using the Biblical examples as an excuse to drink alcohol.

Wally, it strikes me that the only mention Scripture makes of diluting wine is negative—Isaiah 1:22 notes “your wine is diluted with water” in the same sentence as “your silver has become dross”. I would actually guess that for most of Israel’s history, the Mosaic practice of separating waste from a community kept the water more pure, so they could drink it straight. This source makes the claim that Jews only started diluting their wine as they became Hellenized. Certainly that claim is at least consistent with what you’ve said and Isaiah.

No wine coolers for me, though. It’s basically alcoholic pop, and millions (especially sorority girls) learned the hard way that you can lose your sobriety and your figure very quickly from them back in the 1980s. Think of all the kids you know who can down a Super BIg Gulp without batting an eye; it’s a quick thousand calories with a few ounces of pure alcohol to boot.

And really, if we’re going to use the example of the ancients for our own, don’t we need to get rid of our cars, computers, medical care, indoor plumbing, and the like? No thank you.

[WallyMorris]

Maybe I’ve missed it, but no one has mentioned that today’s alcoholic drinks are much different than OT & NT alcoholic drinks. The alcohol content is much higher in most of today’s drinks, which would seem to make today’s alcoholic drinks much more dangerous. So the justification that “Jesus did, so we can too” seems an invalid comparison. Additionally, if someone wishes to justify drinking alcoholic beverages because Biblical people did, then he has to dilute the drink with water as Biblical people did, usually 2 or 3 parts water to 1 part alcoholic beverage. People who not dilute their wine were considered barbarians. But I doubt anyone will dilute their drink. So all the talk about our “freedom” seems to be a not quite exact comparison.

[WallyMorris]

The only point Bert has demonstrated is that Christians can drink wine coolers since they are “diluted”. Otherwise, you still have to dilute wine to compare to Biblical times. And one reason people were referred to as barbarians was because they purposely didn’t dilute their drink in order to get drunk. Christians today who wish to let others think they are following Biblical examples must dilute their wine or other “mild” drink, or else they are just using the Biblical examples as an excuse to drink alcohol.

Let’s take Wally’s assertion above at face value.

Say a Christian dining at a restaurant orders a glass of wine to go with his or her dinner. The server returns with a 5 oz. glass (a typical serving) of the wine ordered. On the table is a 16 oz. glass of water, from which the Christian also sips. By plan or not, the Christian finishes both glasses at roughly the same time.

Question: at that point, the wine has been mixed with water at approximately a 3:1 ratio, has it not? Whether pre-mixed, or mixed in the person’s stomach, what’s the difference?

We use the Church Covenant. It has been slightly revised to say:

“to abstain from the sale of, and use of, destructive drugs and intoxicating drinks as a beverage; to shun pornography…”

The full Church Covenant:

http://gulfcoastpastor.blogspot.com/2010/02/church-covenant.html

The Church Covenant is still available in various forms at LifeWay Christian Resources.

We have an adhesive copy of it on the inside cover of our Baptist Hymnals. Also have a card stock version of it in our tract rack.

It is one of a number of ways we can warn our people of the dangers of alcohol and other drugs.

David R. Brumbelow

[TylerR]

Ceremonial washing prior to meals because of fear of ritual defilement (see Mishnah, tractate Yadayim) is not in Scripture. It was a “tradition of the elders” that was completely invented whole-cloth. The tractate itself gives great insight into just how legalistic the Pharisees were, and it should make anybody who is tempted to draw a parallel between them and the SBC re-think their views.

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Tyler, I just skimmed over that tractate, but it doesn’t really deal with all the sources of uncleanness. Given the agrarian society that would have been the norm for the time, one thing that would not easily have been prevented is unclean insects getting all over everything, which would include dishes and hands. The “ceremonial” washing may not have been only for ceremonial purposes, and it *could* have been a legitimate application of the actual OT scriptures for one to decide to wash beyond what the OT requires. Of course, requiring *others* to do so would have gone beyond what was there, but it doesn’t require this tradition to have been invented whole-cloth.