Just Say No (part 2)

[This is conc­lu­sion of the pre­vious topic in my recent post “Just Say No to (insert your favo­rite sin here)”.  I conc­lu­ded the pre­vious post by asking the ques­tion of why the sub­ject of alcohol is so pola­ri­zing? Now I want to con­ti­nue the dis­cus­sion on sin and subs­tance abuse]

Impl­ying that subs­tan­ces them­sel­ves can be bad seems an obvious error.  Though from a prac­ti­ca­lity point of view, perhaps it makes some sense. If I can exter­na­lize the pro­blem (place it outside myself) then defea­ting it is simply a mat­ter of avoi­dance. Being good beco­mes a mat­ter of not going there (how we avoid going there is a sepa­rate issue).

But iden­tif­ying alcohol as inhe­rently wrong not only ele­va­tes a che­mi­cal to god-like sta­tus,  it remo­ves res­pon­si­bi­lity for our own choi­ces. As if other­wise inno­cent peo­ple were wal­king down the street and were accos­ted by a case of whis­key and for­ced to drink until they could not stand up. Saying in effect – ‘your life would have tur­ned out just fine if only you hadn’t been attac­ked by that whis­key lur­king in the alley’.

Having wor­ked with peo­ple in “reco­very” from various addic­tive beha­viors, I have never seen someone who was an “abu­ser” of any subs­tance who didn’t actually have some dee­per issue in their life that was mani­fes­ted in the abuse. Simply telling an alcoho­lic or drug abu­ser to “just say no” to the exter­nal subs­tance demons­tra­tes a misun­ders­tan­ding of the dyna­mic of sin. The sin is not in the subs­tance, it’s in choo­sing to ban­dage a bro­ken heart with something other than the God who made you.

Accor­ding to the scrip­tu­res, sin starts in the mind and works its way out­ward. (James 1:13–15). Typi­cally, someone who abu­ses subs­tan­ces does so to medi­cate their fee­lings. Avoi­ding sin isn’t accom­plished by simply avoi­ding the exter­nal beha­vior. Sin at its root is inter­nal. Jesus made this point very clear when he called “hate” the equi­va­lent of “mur­der” and “lust” the same as “adul­tery”. At one point, Jesus chi­ded the pha­ri­sees about how they clea­ned the outside of the cup but the inside was dirty. The pha­ri­sees were mas­ters of the exter­nal appea­rance (I know this per­so­nally as I con­si­der myself a reco­ve­ring pha­ri­see). Yet Jesus said they were far from God.

Many Chris­tians say that the key rea­son for avoi­ding alcohol is to set a good exam­ple. But this begs the ques­tion, “a good exam­ple of what, someone who doesn’t drink?” Yet Jesus (who did con­sume alcoho­lic beve­ra­ges) was accu­sed of being a drunk and appa­rently wasn’t too con­cer­ned about this repu­ta­tion. He was also accu­sed of han­ging out with sinners.

The “good exam­ple” argu­ment is pro­ble­ma­tic for seve­ral rea­sons. First, it asks Chris­tians to set a higher exam­ple (e.g. by refu­sing a glass of wine offe­red at a din­ner party) than Jesus him­self who brought the ancient equi­va­lent of seve­ral kegs of beer to a party. Second, we are told that this avoi­dance will somehow strengthen those who are temp­ted toward subs­tance abuse. Thirdly, we are led to believe that abs­ti­nence from wine, ins­tead of alie­na­ting unbe­lie­vers, will somehow create a res­pect that leads to their con­ver­sion. I find all three of these pro­po­si­tions weak and have often won­de­red if the world wouldn’t be bet­ter ser­ved by more and bet­ter exam­ples of mode­ra­tion (drin­king without drun­ken­ness) than it is by the pre­sence of more teetotalers.

I can’t finish this post without a com­ment or two to those who have somehow delu­ded them­sel­ves into belie­ving that Jesus did not create or drink alcoho­lic wine. First, go read C.S. Lewis’ famous essay on Mirac­les. It will give you something to think about. Second, go back to bio­logy class. There is nothing unholy about alcohol. It is a subs­tance of the crea­ted order. God was not sur­pri­sed when the by-product of yeast con­su­ming sugar, pro­du­ced alcohol. If you don’t think God knew about this and appro­ved of it, you don’t have a very big God. Surely a God that thought wine was sin­ful would have made it a bit har­der to make than just lea­ving grape juice sit­ting around.

Regar­ding the use of alcohol by Chris­tians, I would pre­fer unity within The Church.  I don’t wish to be divi­sive and it’s not an argu­ment I was loo­king for. I long for the day when at the marriage sup­per of the Lamb of God, when the radiant Bride of Christ is uni­ted fore­ver with Him in splen­dor. And we who are that Church raise to our lips our glas­ses in cele­bra­tion. A vic­tory toast. Raise your glas­ses in tri­bute to Him. Oh the splen­did sur­prise (assu­ming sur­pri­ses remain) that may come across the faces of many for­mer fun­da­men­ta­lists and evan­ge­li­cals. “What?!! Alcohol?, but this is hea­ven!” And perhaps Jesus will smile at them and say – “why yes it is.”

~ Truly Free