Here’s where I venture into opinion in this series. Take it as such.
I think our culture’s views of drinking are messed up. Warped and distorted. That’s why you can’t just say, “Go ahead and drink.” In the comment section yesterday, I mentioned the article “Protestants and Catholics: Drunken Barbarians and Mellow Romans?” That article seems to explain part of it. Our culture has had influence from Germanic and Celtic cultures, more than the Latin or Mediterranean culture.
You see, I’ve lived in a Mediterranean culture, for that’s what Argentina is, to a large degree. I’ve seen people drink beer as a beverage and not as a stomach lubricant. I’ve seen diluted wine used as a regular part of meals. I’ve seen Christians drink freely with no shame and no drunkenness. I’ve known people who drank wine every day yet I never saw them anywhere close to intoxicated.
Unfortunately, their culture is changing, with the young people wanting to emulate what they see in American movies and TV. Society is becoming more mobile, and the social controls are breaking down, as they broke down here long ago.
It doesn’t have to be that way. But it is that way now. We deal with how things should be, and we deal with things as they are.
Drinking parties, keggers, night clubs and beer joints… none of those fit into what the Bible describes when it talks about enjoying God’s gifts with thanksgiving. If that’s all people know when it comes to alcohol, then it’s best to tell them to avoid it. Not because of the alcohol, but because of the abuse and because of the context. To me it’s analogous to Paul telling the Corinthians to eat meat in certain contexts and not in others. We can’t just give our young people a green light on drinking. It’s not that simple.
I also think that the church has made a mistake in abandoning that area to the devil. When the world twists and distorts what God has made, the church’s answer must be to show them what is right. For too long we allowed the world to be the only voice as to what sexuality was all about, and we’ve reaped the consequences. We’ve let the world dictate how discourse should be carried out, and Christians find it hard to deal courteously with those that disagree with them. We let the world have movies and television and are finding it terribly hard now to gain a footing in those areas. By letting the world define what the proper use of alcohol is, we’ve given the devil a formidable weapon.
When we present our young people with the traditional proof texts, it takes little for them to see them for the house of cards that they are. When we go against Paul’s advice and make “Don’t touch, don’t taste, don’t handle” our mantra, we fail to correct the excesses just as he told us we would.
My suggestions:
- We need to re-establish the social controls. You want to drink? You do it in a planned amount, in a Christian family atmosphere, where no one allows anyone else to get drunk. No drinking parties. No frat house keggers. No wild nights on the town. One drink as part of a meal, maybe two. Or half a glass before bed. Control. Community.
- We need to use the biblical teachings of self-control rather than the world’s teachings of “all or nothing.” That applies not only to alcohol. As someone has said, while only 20% of those who drink do so to excess, 99% of those who eat in this country eat to excess. We’ve made gluttony a joke and drunkenness a mortal sin. The Bible relates the two. We need to learn self-control in our eating, our drinking, our materialism, our political discourse, our anger, our envy, our quest for revenge, etc. (I should point out that “self-control” in the Bible is the self being controlled by the Spirit, not the self controlling the self. We need God’s help to dominate our human nature) “Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle” is the world’s way. We are called to something higher.
- We need to give Christians the right to make the choices that are best for them. Some will choose not to drink. They need to have that right. Some will choose not to eat red meat. They should have that right. Some will opt for a life of celibacy, others for a life of poverty. Each of these decisions can be made for godly reasons. We must respect peoples rights to choose these paths and respect the rights of others to choose to participate in eating, drinking, marriage or financial safety.
Thanks to all who have joined in in this discussion. Thanks to the many more who have read without commenting here. Tomorrow I’ll share some links for additional reading, just in case I haven’t totally exhausted your patience with this subject.
Previous posts in this series:
The Christian and Alcohol (Alcohol abuse)
The Christian and Alcohol, Part 2 (Alcohol in the history of the U.S.)
The Christian and Alcohol, Part 3 (Seeing what the Bible says about alcohol)
The Christian and Alcohol, Part 4 (What the Pentateuch says about alcohol)
The Christian and Alcohol, Part 5 (What the rest of the Old Testament says about alcohol)
The Christian and Alcohol, Part 6 (What Proverbs and Ecclesiastes say about alcohol)
The Christian and Alcohol, Part 7 (What the gospels say about alcohol)
The Christian and Alcohol, Part 8 (What the rest of the New Testament says about alcohol)
The Christian and Alcohol, Part 9 (Additional passages to consider)
The Christian and Alcohol, Part 10 (Additional passages to consider)
The Christian and Alcohol, Part 11 (Modern concepts forced onto an ancient text)
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