GODSTUFF

Picture, if you will, a husband and wife — he 60 and she teetering on the edge of 40 — in the back of a taxi rumbling through the streets of an African city at night, frantically searching for mints in a jacket pocket or purse to cover the trace of wine on their breaths.

It’s a pretty silly scenario, but that’s exactly what my husband and I found ourselves doing one night not too long ago. We were on our way back to the home of our hosts, a thoroughly lovely and loving pastor and his wife, and we didn’t want to offend them.

We are what some might call, in the parlance of the milieu, “believing Christians,” and so, of course, were our hosts. But they are teetotalers and we are not.

I don’t think either one of us believed our hosts would judge us or question the authenticity of our faith were they to smell a whiff of Chardonnay on us. Not at all. They are grace-filled people. For us the mints were a gesture of respect, if perhaps an ill-conceived one.

The consumption of alcohol is one of those sticky wickets that can get some people of faith, particularly my people — evangelical Protestant Christians — pretty riled up. The Bible is clear that drunkenness is a no-no, but on the imbibing of fermented drink, it is ambivalent at best.

There are verses that compare the consumption of wine a fool’s folly. Proverbs 20:1 calls wine a “mocker” and beer a “brawler.” And there are verses that praise the Creator for the fruit of the vine (and they’re not referring to Welch’s Grape Juice.) Throughout Hebrew scripture, wine is often a metaphor for God’s blessings. Proverbs 3:10, for instance, says that for those who honor God with their tithes, “your vats will brim over with new wine.”

Although nothing was articulated explicitly, at the home of our wonderfully generous hosts, it was clear that no alcohol was kept in the house and none was consumed on the premises.

We totally get that. Where the pastor and his wife live, particularly in their Pentecostal circles, Christians do not drink alcohol. Period.

They are not alone. According to a 2006 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life survey of Pentecostals in 10 countries worldwide, an average of 86 percent of Pentecostals in Kenya and Nigeria said that alcoholic consumption was “never justified.”

That Pew study went on to report that, “in most countries, drinking alcoholic beverages is viewed as less acceptable than getting a divorce. In fact, in seven countries, majorities say that drinking alcohol can never be justified. And in every country except the U.S., at least half of Pentecostals share this view.”

Last week, in its monthly (rather unscientific but still intriguing)  Evangelical Leaders Survey, the National Association of Evangelicals asked the question, “Do you drink alcohol socially?” To my surprise, 40 percent of the leaders admitted they did. (Sixty percent said they did not.)

I was shocked the number of admitted drinkers was as high as 40 percent. Many of the pastors I know, of various evangelical and Pentecostal flavors, would not drink socially if for no other reason than to avoid “the appearance of sin” or presenting a “stumbling block” to those in their flock who might struggle with addiction or have a history of alcohol abuse in their families.

Of the evangelical leaders who said they did partake socially, many added caveats such as “in moderation,” “never in excess,” or “on special occasions.” Others explained that out of sensitivity to those who might be offended, they only drink with those who share similar views on alcohol consumption.

That last sentiment was the impetus for our mint hunt. But it still left me feeling a bit spiritually torn. They’re teetotalers. We are not. All of us love Jesus, the same Jesus who, in his first miracle, turned cisterns of water in to copious amounts of good wine to keep the party rolling for a group of surely already well-lubricated wedding guests.

That same Pew survey found that in South Africa, where religious culture has been mightily influenced by the Dutch and their Reformed Christian theology and sensibilities, only 56 percent of Pentecostals said that drinking alcohol was “never justified.”

Jim West, author of the fascinating examination of the history of alcohol and the church, Drinking with Calvin and Luther, dedicates his work to “the hearty heirs of the Reformation,” such as John Calvin and Huldrych Zwingli, fathers of Reform theology.

“The Reformers not only restored justification by faith alone, but did so while enjoying God’s creation gifts,” West writes. “They exalted wine as a gift of God, but they also censured winos and whiners.”

God’s creation gifts? I’ll drink to that.