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.”
"... free will does not include free will to sin."
Exactly. Still, they presume to decree that drinking alcohol IS sin, when it is simply a tradition.
The resolution by the Southern Baptist Convention has the effect of making all evangelicals look like a bunch of prudish busybodies, sort of a right wing version of left wing social engineering. Charismatics, conservative Reformed, Holiness, and other conservative non-Baptist groups tend to be lumped together by the mainstream culture. The liberals in mainline churches can point to resolutions like this to warn their members that evangelicalism is the road to Puritanism (though the actual Puritans were fond of alcoholic beverages).
which also passed with about four-fifths
Sounds like a SBC party to me.
Exactly.
Calling traditions of men mandates from God is dangerous business.
The Serpant got Eve by adding just a bit to what God said. It's an old trick, and still just as dangerous.
Pretty well sums it up - of course, I'm a Methodist, and our national leadership's motto is, "It's cool" - whatever the issue is. Fortunately, they're all getting old and dying off. Oops - did I type that out loud?
One of "those religious radio stations", K-Love, is as good as anything out there in its production quality AND has a great, wholesome, VERY cool playlist. It ain't all Southern Gospel and organ music.
"Sounds like a SBC party to me."
I don't know about that. With about 10,000 messengers, and 8,000 or so guests, I'm not sure four fifths would cover the crowd. Now with a little divine intervention (reminiscent of the loaves and fishes, or perhaps the Cana wedding) they might have been okay...
What's the deal with the "greedy" thing? Does that include greed in the name of the church, like "give me, err, I mean the church more money so that I, err... I mean the church can buy a private jet so that I can fly around the country and beg for money for... um... the church."
>The flaw with the SBC, however, is that they espouse that having a drink is forbidden scripturally, which is bunk. <
Actually they did not take this position.They took the position that 90% of SBC Churches take.(if you are in a leadership position you should abstain from alcohol in order to not be a stumbling block)
"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."
Not urging a brother to avoid the trap of alcohol would be a failure as a church.In my experience the "deadest churches" are those that promote alcohol by calling ministers who drink with congregants and see nothing wrong with church events that involve alcohol use.
Heh.
You know that where you find two Catholics together, you'll find a fifth.
I am a Catholic, by the way.
"In my experience the "deadest churches" are those that promote alcohol by calling ministers who drink with congregants. . "
Yes, like that winegobbler, Jesus.
"and see nothing wrong with church events that involve alcohol use"
Like the Wedding at Cana.
And Communion.
"Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart (Ecclesiastes 9:7)."
"For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil. The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!" (Luke 7:33-34 KJV)
Can't win, eiter way, I guess.
>Yes, like that winegobbler, Jesus<
Big difference in a table wine with low alcohol content at best in Jesus day and 80 proof highballs at a church social today.
Correct.
Of course, due to man's long hisotry of alchol
One beer mug/bottle = one glass of wine = one shot of whiskey (or whatever) in alcohol content.
The alcohol cotent of beer and wine is controlled by the yeast (which dies off as alcohol increases), and is, and has always been, pretty well consistent, within reason.
Distilled spirits (basically everything else) increases the alcohol to points well above what would kill the fermenting yeast (or sometimes bacteria) by, well, distillation.
To follow up, the alcohol content of wine 2,500 years ago is alcohol content of wine today. Yeast dies at the same alcohol percentage.
(Indeed, they recently brewed up Babylonian beer with Babylonian receipe and yeast spores recovered from the correct layer of dirt.)
It was also common in Jesus day to cut the wine with water.
The question is would the God of the Bible council drinking alcohol in moderation after he called it poison?
Deu 32:33 Their wine [is] the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.
Would Jesus council us to avoid temptation and then sanction alcoholic beverages which lead to ruin?
>To follow up, the alcohol content of wine 2,500 years ago is alcohol content of wine today. Yeast dies at the same alcohol percentage. <
That assumes natural fermantation on wines today and no sugar added or extra sweet grapes grown.
They also made a wine in that day that was boiled to stop all fermantation and thus like "new wine " had no alcoholic content.
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