Christians who don't drink alcohol

Factual Questions
1

This is more of a GQ mixed with a poll, really. It is here in GD because I understand that everything religious should be here.

There are several denominatios of Christians that do not drink alcohol. Is there a scriptural basis for this or is it a decision taken by the church, as a community, for other reasons? If the latter, how does that reconcile with Jesus turning water into wine and celebrating his last supper with wine?

Also, what do you do for the Eucharist? Grape juice (still fruit of the vine, really), alcohol-free wine (as O’Douhls is alcohol-free beer), no drinking at all, something else?

I realize that different denominations will have different reasons, so feel free to add your version even if someone has already given a general answer.

I am not planning on debating any answer I get. I am just curious.

2

Back in the day when I was a Southern Baptist there was no dancin’, drinking’, smokin’, cussin’, card playin’ et al. Of course the deacons all took a smoke break between Sunday School and Sunday Service.

We used grape juice.

I have no idea what the scriptural basis was. There was not a lot of close reading of the text, if you get my drift.

3

[QUOTE=Contrapuntal]
Back in the day when I was a Southern Baptist there was no dancin’, drinking’, smokin’, cussin’, card playin’ et al. Of course the deacons all took a smoke break between Sunday School and Sunday Service.

We used grape juice.

I have no idea what the scriptural basis was. There was not a lot of close reading of the text, if you get my drift.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t know TOO much about this brand of Christianity, but I have never heard of a scriptural basis for it…I think it may be more culturally than scripturally-based. You know, all about clean living, as you describe, Contrapuntal.

4

As an aside, the Bible has plenty of passages against getting drunk. That I understand and I could even see them used as general basis for an argument against drugs, latte OD, and all other kinds of psychotropies.

What I am curious about is the single glass of wine with dinner and the wine for Communion.

(and I just thought of this, what about using wine for cooking? the alcohol is gone, right?)

5

Some use Proverbs 20:1 “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.”

Others use the various passages that condemn drunkenness.

The church I grew up in cited Romans 14:21 "It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to “to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.”

Their rationale was that it may not be wrong of itself to do those things, but you never know when someone else has a drinking problem (or whatever issue) and seeing you do it may cause them problems.

6

The Welch’s grape juice company was founded by a Methodist who wanted to find a way of ensuring that the grape juice would not ferment for purposes of communion.

I believe (but do not know for certain) that the Methodist lack of wine has to do with that church’s involvement in the temperance movement and Prohibition; they were concerned enough with various evils of alcohol that they went Mohammed’s route and settled, eventually, on, “Nope, you people can’t handle it, you get none.”

7

One thing I’ve always wondered, in churches which do use real wine for Communion, is there a problem for recovering alcoholics? My understanding of alcoholism is that if you’re recovering you really shouldn’t have even a sip of it, so how is that handled in churches?

8

[QUOTE=Sapo]
This is more of a GQ mixed with a poll, really. It is here in GD because I understand that everything religious should be here.
[/quote]

As I understand it, that’s not so: religious debates and witnessing go here. Polls and things of that nature go in IMHO, religious or no.

9

[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus]
One thing I’ve always wondered, in churches which do use real wine for Communion, is there a problem for recovering alcoholics? My understanding of alcoholism is that if you’re recovering you really shouldn’t have even a sip of it, so how is that handled in churches?
[/QUOTE]

They usually offer both wine and a non-alcoholic substitute like grape juice.

10

[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus]
One thing I’ve always wondered, in churches which do use real wine for Communion, is there a problem for recovering alcoholics? My understanding of alcoholism is that if you’re recovering you really shouldn’t have even a sip of it, so how is that handled in churches?
[/QUOTE]

Catholic understanding is that transubstantiation causes the body and blood of Christ to take the physical forms of both bread and wine. Therefore, either of these is sufficient for communion.

An alcoholic would therefore take bread only, and be fine.

11

[QUOTE=Mr. Moto]
Catholic understanding is that transubstantiation causes the body and blood of Christ to take the physical forms of both bread and wine. Therefore, either of these is sufficient for communion.

An alcoholic would therefore take bread only, and be fine.
[/QUOTE]
That is true, and likewise, those with Celiac disease or some other problem that prevents them from consuming bread could just have the wine, and be fine, as well.

12

[QUOTE=Antinor01]
They usually offer both wine and a non-alcoholic substitute like grape juice.
[/QUOTE]

Really? How do people know which is which? Announcement, sign, tradition?

13

[QUOTE=Sapo]
Really? How do people know which is which? Announcement, sign, tradition?
[/QUOTE]

I’ve only been in one church that used actual wine and they offered a substitute. They announced before communion started which usher had wine and which had juice.

14

[QUOTE=Antinor01]
Their rationale was that it may not be wrong of itself to do those things, but you never know when someone else has a drinking problem (or whatever issue) and seeing you do it may cause them problems.
[/QUOTE]
That has been my impression as well; Paul speaks to drunkeness several times in Corinthians I and II, but no where does he say anything against drinking wine. cf I Timothy 5:23 and John 2:1-11, where wine has a place in life.

[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus]
One thing I’ve always wondered, in churches which do use real wine for Communion, is there a problem for recovering alcoholics? My understanding of alcoholism is that if you’re recovering you really shouldn’t have even a sip of it, so how is that handled in churches?
[/QUOTE]
In the Episcopal church, and in the RCC I assume, many people dip the communion wafer in the wine, AKA intinction. I used to work with an alcoholic priest, and IIRC this is what he did.

Vlad/Igor

15

[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus]
One thing I’ve always wondered, in churches which do use real wine for Communion, is there a problem for recovering alcoholics? My understanding of alcoholism is that if you’re recovering you really shouldn’t have even a sip of it, so how is that handled in churches?
[/QUOTE]
I should have added to my previous post, in the Catholic Church, you can’t substitute anything for real wine, or the transubstantiation does not occur. This is different in churches that have a different theology about communion.

16

I was born and raised in a Mennonite community. They are a conservative lot so all of the churches in town go with alcohol free Eucharist ceremonies. Most of the churches and their memberships do not consume alcohol, not because the bible expressly says so but because it is better to avoid temptation altogether rather than risk going over the edge. I think Lilairen nails it down with the ‘…can’t handle it, you get none’ statement.

17

[QUOTE=Antinor01]
Some use Proverbs 20:1 “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.”

Others use the various passages that condemn drunkenness.

The church I grew up in cited Romans 14:21 "It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to “to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.”

Their rationale was that it may not be wrong of itself to do those things, but you never know when someone else has a drinking problem (or whatever issue) and seeing you do it may cause them problems.
[/QUOTE]
The problem with a rationale based on specific verses in the Bible is that it has a lot more nice things to say about wine than bad things. A sampler:

Ecclesiastes 9:7: “Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do.”

Song of Songs 1:2: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth— for your love is more delightful than wine.”

Genesis 14:18: “Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High…”

Isaiah 55:1: “Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.”

The no-wine crowd, being reasonably familiar with Scripture, is somewhat aware of this problem, and has come up with assorted work-arounds. One is the claim that the Hebrew word that we translate as ‘wine’ meant both wine and unfermented grape juice, and that the passages saying bad things about wine pointed to the former, while the good passages about wine meant the latter.

That has problems in that some of the passages referring favorably to wine certainly seem to mention its intoxicating properties, e.g. the Song of Songs passage above.

Another (stronger, IMHO) argument is that the Bible isn’t the final word on moral wisdom: in the Bible, slavery is accepted, and so is consumption of alcohol; we (the argument goes) now realize that both are wrong.

There are problems in turn with that (naturally), but I think that starts to get beyond the scope of the thread.

18

[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]
I should have added to my previous post, in the Catholic Church, you can’t substitute anything for real wine, or the transubstantiation does not occur. This is different in churches that have a different theology about communion.
[/QUOTE]
Should I ask how their thinking on that goes? ISTM that if the bread by itself suffices, then if the wafer accidentally gets a sprinkling of holy water, would that cancel out its transsubstantiative properties? Or does it take something that’s almost, but not quite, wine to have that effect?

I’m not trying to give you a hard time or put you in the position of defending the RCC’s theological complexities; I’m just curious as to what those complexities are.

19

BTW, the point of my post #17 wasn’t to debunk justifications for religious bans on wine drinking, but to give a sense that various Christian groups that didn’t believe in alcohol consumption were aware of some of the weaknesses in the weaker arguments, and how they had developed new arguments to deal with or avoid those weaknesses.

20

[QUOTE=Sapo]
Really? How do people know which is which? Announcement, sign, tradition?
[/QUOTE]

The church I was in that offered both did all three. It was announced by the pastor, and written in the bulliten that the cups in the center contained grape juice, and those around the edge had wine.

This was a church were communion was served in the pews, and they passed this silver tray with slots for all the little cups.