Regarding The Southern Baptist Convention's 'Resolution No. 5: On Alcohol Use in America'

The Southern Baptist Convention held its annual nationwide meeting this last week, June 13 and 14, 2006. According to adherents.com, the SBC is "the second largest religious body in the United States" (behind the Catholics), and they have more churches than any other religious institution in our nation (over 37,000). It therefore goes without saying that the SBC has a considerable influence on religion (not to mention politics) in America. The SBC's more prominent leaders, such as Al Mohler, the late Adrian Rogers, Charles Stanley, Charles Swindoll, Rick Warren, and others, hold considerable sway over American conservative ideology. Such is the case with the recent resolution made at the 2006 Southern Baptist Convention in Greensboro, NC. It's titled 'Resolution No. 5: On Alcohol Use in America' and is now the SBC's official stance on alcohol use in America. I was a member of a Southern Baptist congregation for 3 1/2 years and I currently attend a Southwest Baptist University, which is a SBC liberal-arts college in Southwest Missouri, and I must say I wholeheartedly disagree with the SBC's attempt to dictate a doctrine of prohibitionism to all who would be members of the denomination.

Daniel Whitfield has done some very enlightening research entitled 'Alcohol and the Bible', which has some very timely and balanced information concerning the way in which a Christian should handle the issue of alcohol use. I will let you read the article in its entirety as you wish at the above link, but I wanted to repost several comments that Whitfield made that are, in my opinion, very on-target concerning this issue.

His definition of the weaker brother mentioned in Romans 14:21, and the ensuing discussion is interesting and hits the mark well:

"In the Bible we find an interesting (and perhaps surprising) relationship between conscience and legalism. The references to people whose conscience is not working properly describe, not people who fail to realize they are sinning, but people who think they (or others) are sinning when they aren't.

In reference to eating meat sacrificed to idols, Paul says:
'Eat anything sold in the market without raising questions of conscience, for, "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it." If some unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience. But if anyone says to you, "This has been offered in sacrifice," then do not eat it, both for the sake of the man who told you and for conscience' sake — the other man's conscience, I mean, not yours. For why should you be judged by another's conscience? If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for?' 1 Corinthians 25-30.
The man who has problems with his conscience is the one who is worried about eating the meat, not the one who realized there is no sin in eating the meat.

Romans uses the term weak faith rather than weak conscience, but the principle is the same.
'Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgement on disputable matters. One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables.' Romans 14:1-2. Verses 3 through 4 caution each of the men not to condemn the other, good advice for us all to remember.

In perhaps the most severe passage, Paul tells Timothy that people whose consciences have been seared will abandon the teaching of the faith and start to teach a legalistic abstinence:
'The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.' 1 Timothy 4:1-4.

Titus also contains a scathing passage on this topic.
'To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted.' Titus 1:15

So we find that the weaker brother is the one who sees prohibitions where God has not placed them. Legalism is actually the result of a weak conscience, not a strong conscience developed from spiritual maturity. With that interesting detour, let's return to the remaining reference to wine."

I have always heard Romans 14:21 given to interpretation as that the weaker brother is one who may be a new Christian who might stumble because you are drinking alcohol, which is 'against Christian morals'. Therefore, the brother sees you doing something the Bible 'prohibits you from doing' and he stumbles. But this scenario is flawed because it has been falsely imposed upon the new believer that drinking alcohol is indeed against the Christian standard of morality. As Whitfield's research shows, alcohol use is looked upon favorably or in a neutral way the vast majority of times it is mentioned in scripture, with a minority of references given which warn against abusing alcohol. Rather, the weaker brother seems to be a person, whether a new believer or not, who truly believes in his heart that it is a sin for him to drink alcohol, and that causing him to stumble occurs when you lead him by your example to drink it while he still believes it is a sin. Romans 14:23: 'But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith, and everything that does not come from faith is sin.' If I drink alcohol and my Christian brother who truly believes that it is sinful to drink alcohol in any capacity is there and I offer him a drink and he takes it, still believing it is a sin, and drinks--if I do this, I have caused him to stumble.

But this is not how our conservative Christianity interprets it. As Whitfield says, "It must be noted that some people have taken this verse in the King James version, which uses the word "offended," and have interpreted offend to mean "an insult or affront". Based on this interpretation, which is not supported by the context, they have used this verse to say "If you know I am opposed to any use of alcohol and you drink alcohol in spite of that, you have offended me in violation of Romans 14:21." However, an honest reading of the entire chapter makes it clear that verse 21 doesn't say that we have offended a brother if a self-righteous Pharisee feels insulted that we would transgress his/her legalistic concept of Christian behavior. We have offended our brother only if we cause him to violate his conscience by imitating actions he believes in his heart are wrong."

This is in agreement with what Whitfield later says about Jesus' relationship to the Pharisees: "The second reference to wine in connection with Jesus comes in the form of a false accusation from Pharisees, recorded in Luke 7:33. Jesus maintains that the Pharisees wouldn't be satisfied regardless of what he did. John the Baptist had evidently taken a vow of abstinence and they had accused him of having a demon. Jesus evidently took no such vow, but ate and drank openly and freely, so they accused him of being a glutton and a drunkard. If Jesus was a prohibitionist, the charge of being a drunkard would have been too ridiculous for such astute twisters of the truth as the Pharisees to have advanced. Jesus evidently drank wine to the extent that his enemies thought they could discredit him by spreading rumors that he was a drunkard." "Jesus was more critical of religious people adding prohibitions to the burden of the common man than he was of sinners. He never called prostitutes, adulterers, or drunkards 'vipers'."

Jesus obviously didn't care what the self-righteous religious leaders thought or said about him in his day. He condemned their legalistic behavior of imposing additional rules upon themselves and others which were not originally part of the holiness code. Jesus did not abstain from drinking alcohol in order to conform to the self-righteous religious demands of Pharisaic Jews. Christ condemned this exact behavior in Matthew 23: 15: 'Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.'

So here's my question: What difference is there between the attitudes and behaviors of the religious leaders of Jesus' day (the Pharisees) and the religious leaders of our day (in this case, the Southern Baptist Convention with its president, Executive Committee, and pastors who voted in favor of this resolution)? The answer is simple: Nothing. There is no difference. Whitfield has clearly shown from Scripture that alcohol use is not a sin, any more than money is a sin or sex is a sin (the examples Whitfield uses). Rather, as with all things, humanity's fallen nature inherently perverts these good gifts from God to use and abuse in the wrong ways. What America needs is not a prohibition of alcohol. What America needs is a Southern Baptist Convention, and a General Council of the Assemblies of God, and for all the leaders of Christian denominations, to step up to the plate and teach us how to properly use the good gift of alcohol that God has given us, rather than cowering behind their denominational facade in fear of what they falsely believe is a cultural sin.

SBC, hear this: Quit imposing your self-righteous legalism on us and let us live in the freedom which Christ bought for us at the severe cost of his own life. You make a mockery of Christ, as the Pharisees did, when you start imposing Resolution No. 5's upon us in areas of life which Christ did not intend them to be. Instead, you need to remove your own self-righteousness (which, by the way, is a sin which Christ accused the Pharisees of over and over again) and quit proselytizing your followers to become 'sons of hell' like yourselves. Shame on you.

Matt