To all our readers and searchers:

I rarely–let me rephrase–I’ve never written on religious topics on the site.  Nate has posted a couple of things, but we don’t want to make this a Christian beer website.  Nate and I both happen to be Christians, but our website loyalties are strictly beer.  Of course, we were being quite literal when we called the site thankheavenforbeer.  Be that as it may, I would like to write an article about whether or not it is actually sinful to drink beer.  I realize this is a niche article and not everybody will appreciate, like, or even understand what all the fuss is about.  Fortunately, there is a plenty of other unaffected, at least as far as “religion” is concerned, stuff on the site.  Feel free to read on or go to another article.

Why am I even bothering to write this?  Well, the answer is simple.  I’ve seen multiple times that people have searched the exact terminology “Is drinking beer sinful?” or “Is drinking sinful?” and I want to be a vanguard against neo-prohibitionist logic.  In some sense, I know very well that tortured soul who is asking this question, and I feel an obligation to answer him or her. I’ve asked this question and have found a reasonable answer, so I feel that I need to share it with anyone who is asking.

Tell me this: why do we blog?  Is it to hear ourselves talk or are we all doing this very thing?  Aren’t we assuming that people are seeking advice, instructions, answers, filling curiosities, seeking a community, wanting helpful replies and a myriad of other things when they get on the internet?  It’s not inconsequential that the names of google and the like are called “search engines.”  Isn’t that what a lot of being on the internet is about?  So, in quite another sense, I am not simply aware of the tortured soul…I’m hoping to instruct it.

Our concerns in life run the gambit of the deadly serious to the inane.  However, this question is somewhat serious to me.  You may have to excuse me, this one time, when I don’t have the same sort of levity that I normally do.  Also, as Polonius says in Hamlet, “Since brevity is the soul of wit, brief let me be.”  Actually, I plain to expatiate on this one (normally, I try to keep articles under 500-600 words).

To answer the question in brief, drinking (in and of itself) is not sinful.  I doubt many people will take issue with me when I say that drinking alcohol to excess is at least unwise (I’m avoiding the terminology of sinful here intentionally).  That is to say, our bodies tell us that it was unwise when we have headaches and hangovers. I would even go so far as to say that drinking and driving with the consequence that we injure or kill someone is, whatever terminology you want to substitute here, sinful.  Courts and legislature deem it to be criminal, and therefore, impose penalties on such individuals.  Call it mere convention, but the very name penitentiary implies that we are performing penance for acts that are deemed “sinful,” which is to say perpetrators are wrong and improper in an act toward someone or something.

Be that as it may, let’s assume that the real question is actually, and I believe this is the marrow of the question, “Is drinking any alcoholic beverage fundamentally a sinful act?”  Put another way, “Is alcohol inherently sinful?”  This, I believe, is really the core question.  Why would someone ask this question?  Most of the time, I think some well-meaning individuals say that it is sinful.  Fortunately, their listeners have the faculty to question this assessment, hence they search for the answer to whether or not it is. The well-meaning individual quotes a few bible verses, some statistics, their pastors, some other “authority,” some reason why it was a necessity then and not now, and call it a day.  Simply stated, they build a cumulative case on slight grounds and find more evidence to amass in order to take others captive to their convictions about alcohol.  As Paul says in Galatians, they came to spy on our freedom in Christ.

Okay, let’s take a couple bible verses first.  ”Wine is a mocker, beer is a brawler.”  This Proverb is an oft quoted verse used to bolster the case against alcohol.  ”See, the bible is against drinking.”  Let’s read the rest of the verse, which says, “And whoever is intoxicated by it is not wise.”  Notice that drinking too much is the imperative section of the verse.  Moreover, too much drinking is relegated to a lack of wisdom, not sin.  Whatever else one may say, the beginning of Proverbs states its primary concern is not with sin but with wisdom.  One need only read the first few verses in order to ascertain this fact.  More specifically, the concern of Proverbs has to do with the context of wise court behavior (as in royal court).  More often than not, the point being made is for what might be called Aristotle’s “Golden Mean.”  That is to say that excess, greed (appetite or otherwise), and impulsive action is unwise.

In fact, ostensibly the same writer of Proverbs says in the Song of Songs 1:2 that “love is better than wine.” Of course, love is the primary concern, but the foundational assertion is based on the presumption wine is in of itself good to the point that it takes on a superlative quality.  The same author who “prohibited” its use in Proverbs extols its virtue in Song of Songs?  Is the bible wrong on this or has there been a misunderstanding?  I doubt that the person who says alcohol is wrong would say that bible must be wrong on this account.

What about not drinking as a cultural expedient?  ”Too much violence and loose living is associated with drinking,” some might say.  It’s true enough that some people can’t handle drinking.  It’s true enough that people wreck cars.  Some people have, let’s say, lowered inhibitions.  Many regretful mornings have happened when someone wakes up next to a stranger.  There are various grounds for not drinking too much.

Still, I can’t help but point out that we are not talking about the same thing.  The frequent, singular appeal often made by teetotalers has connections by one of two means.  One, they point to excess. I feel that I’ve dealt with the first of the two pretty thoroughly.  Two, they point to guilt by association.  Do I mean like Jesus associating himself with “tax collectors and sinner”?  I suppose I do.  The problem with the second is that surface judgments are rarely accurate.  (Also, the same person who would get on someone’s case about guilt by association might tell you something like, “God looks at the heart.”  Apparently it’s not all cases and all times.)

Here is my solution.  Fatty food is associated with obesity and heart disease. Heart issues are the number one killer in America.  My idea is to abstain from fatty food totally.  One step further, no food anymore; look at what it’s doing to some people.  Frequency doesn’t matter, portion doesn’t matter, and the health of the person eating doesn’t matter.  I’m just going to assume that everyone eats fatty foods excessively, will become fat, and will someday have a heart attack.  Furthermore, anybody I see at McDonald’s (or anybody who knows someone who eats there) has an obvious obesity and eating problem. How could it be otherwise?

I’m simply pointing out that it’s amazing what we choose to find “sinful.”  Actually, alcohol has some very well known health benefits, and maybe we could consider those as well.  Many of we Christians could rail against our own excesses of eating, etc., before castigating someone who sips a beer.

“They needed it back then but we don’t now.”  I’ve heard this one before.  Essentially, the argument runs along the lines of wine was safer than water.  It draws any enjoyment out of the drinking and relegates it to simply a matter of necessity.  Interestingly though, there will be wine in heaven.  Jesus said so explicitly.  I guess heaven’s water system is not quite as good as the one we’ve got here.  Seriously though, we will presumably not need to eat or drink in heaven to stay alive.  Yet, in scripture’s depiction of heaven, we will be doing both.  Why?  I think this is the bible’s way of pointing out that some things were made for our enjoyment and satisfaction.  The sheer joy of a good meal or good glass of wine seems to be of paramount importance to heaven.  That it to say, that God wants us to enjoy what he has (at least in the bible’s view) given us by inspiring the creation of culinary and viniary (I made this word up) delight.  More than this, it is interesting that people will make the argument about how beer was needed for safer living and then ignore the science that underscores the positive health effects of beer/wine.

I subscribe to (again, I think I coined this term) a theology of abundance.  I’ve stated before that beer was probably discovered by accident.  One major reason for this was excess grain.  Here is a link to my theoretical reconstruction.  The people were blessed with more than they could eat, so extra grain was used for different purposes.  Beer and or wine was discovered incidentally and without knowledge of the positive health effects.  The process for beer and wine (especially wine) was cultivated once its pleasing taste, effects, and qualities were accidentally discovered…perhaps divinely revealed is better terminology.

“The wine was weak, weaker, or not wine at all.”  Have you heard this one?  It’s amazing how many characters in scripture get drunk on something that doesn’t exist or is substantially weaker.  Granted, they were unwise to drink excessively and do what they did.  But their stories, like Proverbs, serve as a warning and not a prohibition. Admittedly, there were better and worse wines (like today), maybe even some weaker wines, but wine is weak because it is short on the grapes or it is watered down.  It’s not that strong wine couldn’t be made.  In fact, Jesus himself made the best (superlative) wine at the wedding feast in Galilee even after the guests had too much to drink.  Did Jesus sin by making and distributing wine to intoxicated people?  I suppose some people might stake their entire Christology on whether or not Jesus made, drank, and enjoyed real actual wine.  Absurd.  Perhaps our morality is not quite what the scriptures are on this one.  I also want to add that any discussion on the Greek word oinos meaning anything other than truly fermented drink is absurd.  Only ignorance drives this assumption.  Furthermore, Jesus stated the danger of putting new wine into old wineskin, presumably because of the expansion during fermentation.  The pressure of this weak, non-alcoholic, watered-down wine was such that it could bust animals skins, which are very tough, by the way.

Much more could be said about church history and the fact that the majority of it (even the pious!) has concluded that drinking is okay.  In fact, it took the American Puritan ethic to deny and destroy the beauty of church history on this issue (one of the unfortunate consequences of the degradation of concern for church history bequeathed by Luther; I’m Protestant, so don’t get me wrong when I say that and the point is not about the factious church anyway).

BUT DON’T DRINK IF YOU ARE AN ALCOHOLIC!!!!

In conclusion, I could have turned this into a 200 page book, so I’m not being real systematic about method, taking every verse into account, etc.  What I am doing is offering some thoughts on why I think people who believe that drinking is sinful are fundamentally misled in this misgivings.  I understand if your aunt Flo was an alcoholic and died of liver disease.  My own aunt died a few months ago due to severe alcoholism.  But I want to say to all of you who are searching the terms mentioned at the beginning of the post, you were right to ask the question.

Let me ask a question, too.  Is sin often excess and corruption of that which was made to be enjoyed?  Isn’t one major understanding of sin is a perversion of something God made to be good?  I would argue yes on both accounts.  All the more, I can say to you that sinful drinking is excessive drinking, if you want the biblical perspective.  I’m not a Buddhist, Muslim, or any other religion, so I won’t presume to answer the question from their doctrinal perspective.  I can certainly answer it from the perspective of a Christian, beer lover, and beer writer.  In my mind the unequivocal answer to your question is a resounding, “No!”