Christian views on alcohol

Throughout the first 1,800 years of Church history, Christians generally consumed alcoholic beverages as a common part of everyday life and used "the fruit of the vine"[1] in their central rite—the Eucharist or Lord's Supper.

[2][3] They held that both the Bible and Christian tradition taught that alcohol is a gift from God that makes life more joyous, but that over-indulgence leading to drunkenness is sinful.

[11][8] Rabbinic teachers wrote acceptance criteria on consumability of ancient alcoholic beverages after significant dilution with water, and prohibited undiluted wine.

[61] The harvest time brought much joy and play,[62] as "[m]en, women and children took to the vineyard, often accompanied by the sound of music and song, from late August to September to bring in the grapes.

[56] After six weeks, fermentation was complete, and the wine was filtered into larger containers and either sold for consumption or stored in a cellar or cistern, lasting for three to four years.

(Leviticus 23:13) As the Jews returned from the Babylonian exile (starting in 537 BC) and the events of the Old Testament drew to a close, wine was "a common beverage for all classes and ages, including the very young; an important source of nourishment; a prominent part in the festivities of the people; a widely appreciated medicine; an essential provision and the wine that the vineyards produced was a valued commodity in ancient times, both for local consumption and for its value in trade or any fortress; and an important commodity," and it served as "a necessary element in the life of the Hebrews.

[86][87] Under the rule of Rome, which had conquered Judea under Pompey (see Iudaea Province), the average adult male who was a citizen drank an estimated liter (about a quarter of a gallon, or a modern-day bottle and a third—about 35 oz.)

[126] Thomas Aquinas (died 1274), a Dominican friar and the "Doctor Angelicus" of the Catholic Church, says that moderation in wine is sufficient for salvation but that for certain persons perfection requires abstinence, and this was dependent upon their circumstance.

Christianity • Protestantism At the time that Methodist founder John Wesley lived, "alcohol was divided between 'ardent spirits,' which included whisky, rum, gin, and brandy, and fermented drinks, such as wine, cider, and beer.

[155] In a series of letters dated to 1789, he noted that experiments prove "ale without hops will keep just as well as the other"—thus he directly contradicted claims by vested interests, whom he likened to the pretentious silversmiths who stirred up violence: 'Sir, by this means we get our wealth.'

At the 1780 Methodist Episcopal Church Conference in Baltimore, the churchmen opposed distilled liquors and determined to "disown those who would not renounce the practice" of producing it.

Despite pressure from interested parties to relax rules of all kinds, the American Methodists afterwards reverted to Wesley's—namely, to avoid "[d]runkenness, buying or selling spirituous [i.e., distilled] liquors, or drinking them, unless in cases of extreme necessity".

"[166] Likewise, Coke and Asbury commented on it saying Paul's objection here concerned the Corinthians (including laymen) and "... their both eating and drinking most intemperately" thereby despising the Church of God and shaming those who have nothing.

For example, ¶91 of the 2014 Discipline of the Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist Connection states:[169] We believe total abstinence from all intoxicating liquors as a beverage to be the duty of all Christians.

Discerning merits in both abstinent and non-abstinent perspectives, the report proposed evaluating alcohol concerns within the broader context of other drug-related issues.

Yet the temperate sentiments of the Methodists were shared only by a few others, until the publication of a tract by eminent physician and patriot Benjamin Rush, who argued against the use of "ardent spirits" (i.e., distilled alcohol), introduced the notion of addiction, and prescribed abstinence as the only cure.

In 1872 the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America united these societies and by 1913 reached some 90,000 members including the juvenile, women's, and priestly contingents.

[185] In the end, Catholicism was largely unaffected in doctrine and practice by the movements to eliminate alcohol from church life,[186][187] and it retained its emphasis on the virtue of temperance in all things.

[200] The effects on church practice were primarily a phenomenon in American Protestantism and to a lesser extent in the British Isles, the Nordic countries, and a few other places.

[191][201] The practice of the Protestant churches were slower to revert, and some bodies, though now rejecting their formerly prohibitionist platform, still retain vestiges of it such as using grape juice alone or beside wine in the Lord's Supper.

[213] Moderationism argues that, according to the biblical and traditional witness, (1) alcohol is a good gift of God that is rightly used in the Eucharist and for making the heart merry, and (2) while its dangers are real, it may be used wisely and moderately rather than being shunned or prohibited because of potential abuse.

[16][177] Moreover, moderationists suggest that the prohibitionist and abstentionist positions denigrate God's creation and his good gifts and deny that it is not what goes into a man that makes him evil but what comes out (that is, what he says and does).

First, some abstentionists argue that wine in biblical times was weaker and diluted with water such that drunkenness was less common,[248][249] though few non-abstentionists accept this claim as wholly accurate[81] or conclusive.

[217] Also, the invention of more efficient distillation techniques has led to more potent and cheaper alcohol, which in turn has lessened the economic barrier to drinking to excess compared to biblical times.

Prohibition movement during the early twentieth century, many Finnish Lutherans were elected to Congress, propelling the earliest stages towards the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Dan Buettner has named Loma Linda, California a "Blue Zone" of longevity, and attributes that to the large concentration of Seventh-day Adventists and their health practices.

"[269] David Wilkerson founder of the Teen Challenge rehabilitation organization, said similar things to Assemblies of God: "a little alcohol is too much since drinking in moderation provides Satan an opening to cruel deception.

"[270][271] Billy Sunday, an influential evangelical Christian, said: "After all is said that can be said on the liquor traffic, its influence is degrading on the individual, the family, politics and business and upon everything that you touch in this old world.

"[272] Prohibitionists such as Stephen Reynolds[273][274][275] and Jack Van Impe[276] hold that the Bible forbids partaking of alcohol altogether, with some arguing that the alleged medicinal use of wine in 1 Timothy 5:23 is a reference to unfermented grape juice.

[21] They argue that the words for alcoholic beverages in the Bible can also refer to non-alcoholic versions such as unfermented grape juice, and for this reason the context must determine which meaning is required.