Same here. I think most of the peer pressure is probably actually with underage drinking or maybe some clubs. With us if someone does not want to drink it’s perfectly fine. Sometimes everyone drinks and sometimes no one does. When you are in a bar to hang out and fellowship it’s very different than if you’re in a bar to get drunk or pick up a one nighter.
A friend/colleague-of-my-grandparents’ mother is visiting her for a while from her home in Prague. She, not knowing very much English, found an establishment where if you paid for one beer, would let you get free refills, so now she goes there every afternoon to have her one or two well-liked beers. Her daughter did explain to her that this was non-alcoholic beer. The establishment in question is Chick-fil-a.
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I recall the fiction presented at those independent Baptist churches: “wine in the Bible is really just a grape product like juice or jelly…”
It was not honest.
I like this passage from Deut 14 of the Common English Bible, in which the Law of Moses mentions drinking beer and wine as part of a religious festival:
22 You must reserve a tenth part of whatever your fields produce each year.
23 Eat the tenth part of your grain, wine, oil, oldest offspring of your herds and flocks in the presence of the LORD your God in the location he selects for his name to reside so that you learn to fear the LORD your God at all times.
24 But if the trip is too long, because the location the LORD your God has selected to put his name is far away from where you live so that you can’t transport the tenth part—because the LORD your God will certainly bless you—
25 then you can convert it to money. Take the money with you and go to the location the LORD your God selects.
26 Then you can use the money for anything you want: cattle, sheep, wine, beer, or whatever else you might like. Then you should feast there and celebrate in the presence of the LORD your God, along with your entire household.
In many places in the ancient world, water was not very safe and watered wine was better for the health.
Yeast plus sugar plus water equals undistilled rum. This is not a substance capable of control as it can be made anywhere with only sugar and water. The yeast will find it.
Prohibition was a reaction to the effects of distilling and the very idea of prohibition before distillation was untenable for numerous reasons.
Going through the Bible and parsing out every verse conceivably related to wine or beer serves what purpose? None that I can see.
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Psalm 104 lays it out clearly:
You cause the grass to grow for the cattle, and plants for people to use, to bring forth food from the earth, and wine to gladden the human heart, oil to make the face shine, and bread to strengthen the human heart.
God made wine to gladden the human heart.
I live in Australia. I don’t know if this was a thing elsewhere but in the late 1800s and early 1900s there was a major movement of women’s Christian “temperance” associations. I gather that excessive alcohol use by men was quite a problem in those days. (In fact the one and only coup to take place in Australia was linked to control of the illicit rum trade. The 1808 Rum Rebellion.) Even as I grew up in the 1980s there was an active cultural memory of the “six o’clock swill”, as men would down as many beers as possible between knock-off (finishing work) and the pubs closing their doors, by law, at six o’clock.
Apparently young people these days drink less than previous generations. Probably a good thing!
Edit to add, in the late 1800s there were even fire brigades that had “temperance” in the name. I assume this gives us a clue how prevalent permanent drunkenness was in those days!
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Yes, Carrie A Nation (a name she thought was God ordained) smashed alcohol frequently!
Carrie Nation - Wikipedia
I was quite interested to read that colonists may have drunk as much as 3 times as much as more recent stats show (at least, as of 2015)–in the US.
From the National Archives: The American Founders’ Views on Alcohol Consumption - The Atlantic
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