Yeah... I don’t go for that line of theological oenology.
Martin Luther seems to have had a good idea of moderation. And Jesus personally got involved enough in food and drink celebrations that He was accused of being a winebibber (and a glutton for that matter). Too much Welch’s? It doesn’t sound like it, in an age where refrigeration didn’t exist unless, maybe, you were like Rome and were powerful enough to get slaves to bring ice in.
I wouldn’t argue, but just let the grace of God make appropriate testimony. Moderation, whose exact definition depends in part on a personal toleration for alcohol, is great. Overindulgence (for whatever reason) is bad and a sin.
With tongue in cheek, the Old Lutheran website offers this:
And did not Jesus declare at the Last Supper that He “would partake no more of the fruit of the vine” until His mission in this our world was complete?
And before that did He not “take the cup filled with wine” and consecrate it with the words, “This is My blood”?
The temperance movement of the 19th Century addressed real problems about alcohol in American society (a civil war can have that effect) but was it necessary to alter the meaning of Scripture in order to strengthen their argument?
