Posted on 06/15/2006 12:56:52 PM PDT by Kahonek
GREENSBORO, N.C. (BP)--Messengers to the 2006 Southern Baptist Convention adopted resolutions on such currently controversial topics as immigration and the environment June 14, but the debate time was dominated by an issue addressed repeatedly in the convention’s 161-year history -- alcohol.
A lengthy debate on a recommendation concerning the use of alcoholic beverages consumed the Resolution Committee’s report in the morning session. In a departure from recent years, the committee needed the evening session to complete its report.
When the back-and-forth on alcohol finally ended, the messengers passed with about a four-fifths majority a resolution not only opposing the manufacture and consumption of alcohol but urging the exclusion of Southern Baptists who drink from election to the convention’s boards, committees and entities. Like other resolutions, it is not binding on SBC churches and entities.
The resolution’s supporters contended the action was needed because some Christians believe they may drink based on a wrong interpretation of the believer’s “freedom in Christ.” They said abstaining from alcohol preserves a Christian’s purity and testimony, while drinking can be a “stumbling block” for others and has destructive results.
Opponents argued that the resolution promoted a position based on Southern Baptist tradition instead of Scripture, which describes the use of wine in the Old and New Testaments. Concern also was expressed that a resolution excluding those who drink alcohol could be the start of a list of sins that would disqualify people from serving in the convention.
The passage of the resolution marked the first time the SBC had approved an alcohol-related recommendation since 1991, according to the records of the convention’s Executive Committee. The 15-year gap is the longest between approved resolutions on alcohol since the convention adopted its first such recorded measure on the topic in 1886. In all, the SBC has approved 57 resolutions related to alcohol since that year.
T.C. French, chairman of the Resolutions Committee, acknowledged afterward that the panel was a “little surprised” the alcohol measure dominated debate, considering some of the other issues addressed in the 15 resolutions.
“We felt like since we had not presented [a resolution] on alcohol in a number of years, we felt like we needed to get that done,” French told reporters.
The committee offered the resolution without recommending any restriction in SBC life for those who consume alcohol. Jim Richards, executive director of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention and a messenger from First Baptist Church of Fort Worth, Texas, introduced on the floor an amendment calling for abstinence among those serving in the SBC, and the Resolutions Committee endorsed his recommendation.
The amendment, which also passed with about four-fifths of messengers in favor, said: “Resolved, that we urge that no one be elected to serve as a trustee or a member of any entity or committee of the Southern Baptist Convention that is a user of alcoholic beverages.”
“While there may be liberty, we cannot violate [the admonition in 1 Corinthians 8 that] says our liberty can become a stumbling block. … [T]he use of alcohol as a beverage can and does impede our testimony for the Lord Jesus Christ,” Richards said in support of his amendment. “[O]ur leaders should take the high road in our walk with the Lord Jesus.”
Voicing opposition to the amendment, Tom Ascol, pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Fla., and executive director of Founders Ministries, a Southern Baptist organization that advocates reformed theology, referred to an New Testament account of Jesus at a wedding as his rationale.
“Christ turned water into wine,” Ascol said.
Speaking against the resolution, Benjamin Cole, pastor of Parkview Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, said he does not advocate the drinking of alcohol but he feared the convention was in danger of “misstepping” if it adopted “a position that is contrary to what the Bible teaches in the flexibility of the scriptural admonitions as they relate to the consumption of alcoholic beverages.”
Cole’s father died at the age of 39 from a liver disease brought on by alcoholism.
“My father did not die because he drank alcohol; my father died because he drank alcohol in excess,” said Cole, who said as a 13-year-old he cared for his father during the last six months of his life.
In defense of the resolution, committee member Dwayne Mercer, pastor of First Baptist Church in Oviedo, Fla., said while he appreciates “the fact that people become alcoholics because they drink too much alcohol, my parents always taught me, ‘If you don’t take the first drink, you don’t have to worry about taking the last.’”
In opposing the resolution, Jeff Young, pastor of Corinth Baptist Church in Ravenna, Texas, said the older members of the SBC had won the battle to proclaim the Bible is “authoritative and sufficient, but when we pass extra-biblical resolutions such as this, we pull the rug out from underneath that teaching.”
Amen!
I am surprised that this is their most important issue. It seems pretty small to me. Why don't they just drink on it. lol. Just kidding.
I am surprised that this is their most important issue. It seems pretty small to me. Why don't they just drink on it. lol. Just kidding.
The Last Supper was a Jewish Passover.
No it wasn't.
When I read Leviticus 10:8-11 it becomes very clear to me:
8And the LORD spake unto Aaron, saying,
9Do not drink wine nor strong drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations:
10And that ye may put difference between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean;
11And that ye may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the LORD hath spoken unto them by the hand of Moses.
Now I know that the Bible in these verses is speaking to the old testament priests, but if we know anything about the new testament we should know that we are the priests and we know where our tabernacle is...or our temple. I don't drink anymore because of what my Righteous and Holy God warned me about in Leviticus. I fear him and I want to be obediant and be able to witness with a clear mind at all times.
Nope, been a northern too long to go that far.
Well, I suppose it depends if the bread was matzos or not, but most agree it was the Seder:
Matthew:
17On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover?"
18He replied, "Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, 'The Teacher says: My appointed time is near. I am going to celebrate the Passover with my disciples at your house.' " 19So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them and prepared the Passover.
20When evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the Twelve. 21And while they were eating, he said, "I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me."
22They were very sad and began to say to him one after the other, "Surely not I, Lord?"
23Jesus replied, "The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me. 24The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born."
25Then Judas, the one who would betray him, said, "Surely not I, Rabbi?"
Jesus answered, "Yes, it is you."[a]
26While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take and eat; this is my body."
Not in modern times. In the middle ages and prior, ergotism from eating bread was relatively common.
Indeed, the prevailing theory regarding the halucinations that started the Salem witch trials was bad bread.
"The 'good wine' Jesus made at Cana (John 2:10) was 'good' not because of its high alcoholic content, but because it was fresh, unfermented grape juice."
LOL. You're reaching on this one, I'm afraid. Read the rest of that chapter. The NIV version says this...
"..and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, 'Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.'"
If the good wine was grape juice, how did people traditionally get drunk on it (have "too much to drink" so that they didn't realized the later wine was cheap)? It was high-quality wine, but this line definitely suggests that it was alcoholic!
In other words, it tasted better. Why did it tast better, because it was pure and not tainted with alcohol.
You're suggesting that they got drunk on it because it tasted better, but was nonalcoholic? The text clearly suggests that the guests got drunk on the good stuff.
Ok, read what you just posted.
"Do not drink wine nor strong drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation"
A literal interpretation of this say, don't drink when you go into the tabernacle, or specifically, don't come to religious services drunk. I don't know how this is stretched into an admonition against alcohol on all levels, then again, I'm not a Southern Baptist minister.
LOL...in West Texas the liquor stores have a Baptist drive- through in the back. Jesus turned water into WINE at the wedding of Cana, so He couldn't hold office in the SBC, I suppose. This non-Scriptural regulation produces hypocrites in the Baptist Church and smacks of Muslim rules and regulations, certainly not the freedom in the Gospel that St. Paul writes about in virtually all 13 epistles of the New Testament.
As you probably know, my earliest years were spent in the westernmost town in Kentucky, Hickman, a quaint little town on the Mississippi river. I recently read that someone is locating a distillery in Hickman, and the first thing that came to my mind was, "Someone is finally putting the 'hic' in Hickman."
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