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Interesting numbers. There may be some overlap in the alcohol abusers and those who die of heart attacks and excessive consumption of alcohol can contribute to a higher risk of heart attack IIRC.
However, another interesting parallel of this is that heart attacks have a large lifestyle factor among the causes, in particular excess weigh (ie gluttony) but I don't hear the SBC making resolutions against fast food outlets that sell unhealthy, fat laden, empty calories; or against sedentary lifestyles (ie sloth).
All this makes me thankful that I am not Baptist.
I used to drink socially. Maybe 6-10 drinks a year. I have quit drinking. I don't know exactly when that happened or how. I can't say that it was a decision based on God's word or even on a matter of principal. It just isn't that big of deal for me one whether I drink or not.
As we all know, for some people alcohol is a huge deal. For them my having one drink can be the thing that allows them to excuse their next binge.
Death from alcohol or alcohol related illness isn't the worst thing that can happen. I have seen the toll that alcoholism takes on a family. A dad who verbally and physically abused his wife and kids. The adult kids now have huge issues because of their father's alcohol and the behavior that went with it. Even though dad died 10 years ago, there are very few healthy interactions in that family. Instead we have enabling, co-dependent, and addictive behavior in the adult kids and now the grandkids.
I understand that alcohol isn't really the problem in this family. It was just a trigger. You could take the alcohol AND all of the other addictions out of the picture and this family would still be broken. The gospel of Christ is the cure. That too can be seen in this family as the middle child is the only one with a relationship with Christ. While he will tell you that he has issues, he doesn't have the drama producing problems his siblings face.
I know another family where the man was raised in a strict baptist home where alcohol was forbidden. In spite of that, he is an alcoholic. He is raising his two girls who are both affected by mom's drinking while they were still being formed in the womb.
As a Christian, I believe that we do have the liberty to drink, but not to excess. As a presby, I think some of the baptist rules are silly. This resolution on alcohol consumption isn't likely to accomplish much.
I just wanted to share that using stats about death and illness related to alcohol doesn't begin to expose the problems that come from abusing alcohol or living with someone who does.
Remember the Disney boycott? 
Cent,
I don't follow your argument. Just because more people die from other (potentially avoidable) means has no bearing on whether we should try to avoid alcohol-related deaths.
Isn't bad simply bad, not according to its relative impact? Wouldn't we want to avoid these deaths because they are avoidable?
The flu has no other moral side (that I know of), but drinking, even when it does not lead to death, does have other potential morally destructive outcomes. So you are not comparing legitimate equals.
Good points.
One quibble, however: five or more drinks in one day is not abuse. Five drinks in an hour or two would be.
@kjos
I am not sure we want to have a "that is, this isn't discussion." To your comment that 5 drinks in one day isn't, I would ask, "How about 5 EVERY day?"
Kjos:
If you could frame your objection in the form of a haiku ...
But seriously, the 5-drinks-a-day standard is the CDC defined "abuse" limit. If one has one drink every 2 hours, it is possible that one is not hammered all day long, but it seems to me that someone who's going to have 5 beers or 5 shots or 5 glasses of wine (or more) in a day isn't sipping at one for 2 hours at a time.
IMO. and I-CDC-O.
__________
Enoch:
I reject the premise that Alcohol is inherently a moral issue. The -social- argument provided by the advocates of prohibition is that alcohol is a kind of plague upon our society which is destroying families, etc. It turns out that death by accident is more common than death by alcohol abuse -- and nobody is walking around bemoaning the problem of accidental death as a plague on our society.
But that said, you offer an interesting option: if we could avoid such-and-such outcome, shouldn't we strive to avoid it by all means? Do we bear a moral imperative to avoid death by "X" if we know it occurs?
Well, let's think about this. Check out this link on dating violence. According to the CDC, 1 in 11 adolescence report being subjected to violence while dating. For the math-impaired, that's 9091 per 100,000 incidences.
Does that mean we must stop teens from dating to subvert dating violence among teens? Is that a moral imperative, given that "dating" has no apparent positive or negative moral implication? BTW, this also means that this kind of violence is 260 times more likely to happen than an alcohol-related death is.
Just because something bad happens in a microscopically-small part of the population participating in some activity, it doesn't mean that the activity itself must stop. The ethical reasoning here is simply biased by the assumption that alcohol is inherently evil in spite of the fact that the Bible plainly says God gives wine to man as a blessing.
Frank
I am in complete agreement with you on this issue.
However, are you just tilting at windmills? If they are willing to deny what the bible says as being applicable, what makes you think that you can get through to them?
Or is this simply a matter of fighting the good fight?
http://www.thirstytheologian.com...6/07/17/
113.php
is the link to the thirstytheologian's multi part posts on the topic, God Gave us Wine)
Frank,
You know, as we've been over this before, no matter what potentially or actually avoidable "hazardous" activity we compare with alcohol consumption it will never be good enough. There is this gnostic tendency assign alcohol in and of itself, even as it sits somewhere in a bottle, the natural characteristic of being evil.
People don't want to give up their personal pleasures and indulgences, but they'd rather find one or two material things and blame those things. A bit of modern day asceticism?
Let me say this: When unbelievers judge Christians as being kooks, especially, when they find a baptist, it ain't because they think you don't drink. It's because all of the other hypocrisies they see in our lives and claiming that alcohol is evil just adds to it.
Mark
This is why johnMark is my friend.
Frank, do those stats include all the drunk driving fatalaties? What about the non-drinking related deaths from people coming into contact with alcoholics.
What about all the fights at the bars and the cost of policing late nights on Friday and Saturday? As Jan mentioned there is the domestic issue which while not taking lives sure affects a lot of families.
I will agree with you though that gluttony is probably a far greater problem in the US.
1. The social argument employed by the modern Prohibitionists is rooted in the 19th century. What Frank, if I can jump ahead will show, is that in THAT century alcohol WAS a bigger problem. This is often ignored by our opponents.
John L. Dagg noted in his autobiography:
In August, 1812, I attended the meeting of the Ketocton Association, to which our church belonged; and was distressed to see the free use made of ardent spirits, by the ministers and members. There was also distressing evidence, that the principal deacon of our church indulged freely in the use of the pernicious liquor; though we had no proof that he was guilty of gross drunkenness. These facts induced me to prepare a query, which the church, at my request, sent up to the Association, at its next meeting. "At what point between total abstinence from ardent spirits, and intoxication by them, does the use of them become sinful?" The temperance reform was then unknown, and the notion of total abstinence was so little understood, that the bearing of my query was not apprehended. In replying to it, the Association replied, that moderation was necessary in the use of ardent spirits. This was the doctrine of the times, in which multitudes of Christian professors, including ministers of the gospel, were victims of intemperance. The deacon just referred to, I assisted afterwards, to exclude from the church; and, some time after, while lying on his hearth, in a state of intoxication, he was roasted to death by the fire.
Ergo:
a. The modern argument is anachronistic.
b. The modern argument lays claim to "Baptist tradition" but as Dagg's own work demonstrates, the majority of Baptist tradition was moderationist up to the time of the Temperance Movement. Dagg was a Prohibitionist himself, I might add.
2. These stats also demonstrate a certain hypocrisy in the modern Prohibitionist thinking. People die from heart attacks more than alcohol. Heart disease is largely a product of:
a. genetics
b. smoking.
c. diet
B and C are controllable factors, yet of these only this past year did the SBC get on the smoking cessation bandwagon via Richard Land's work. A resolution on gluttony proposed by Ben Cole and others was met with mockery and derision by many of the Supporters of Resolution 5.
Put another way, they are willing to boycott Busch Beer but not Krisy Kreme, probably because they're serving Krispy Kremes in Sunday School every Sunday.
Frank
Elmers it be bad is supposed to be the best BBQ in the midwest and I think I live about as far from Tulsa as you do so that sounds great. Maybe we'll get some signs made up and picket Guts when we get done...
Lets do a test. I'll drink a beer every day for a year and someone else eat double quarter-pounder every day for a year and we'll see which one of us is closer to death.
gene
I've read that in Dagg's biography, actually, and wondered if he was a prohibitionist. But his position, I think, was due to the fact that his brother or his son--don't know off hand--drank himself to death. Is it right, then, to change our position from biblical to 'activist' just because of the 'someone we know died' argument? Kinda takes the focus off the gospel doesn't it?
Put another way, they are willing to boycott Busch Beer but not Krisy Kreme, probably because they're serving Krispy Kremes in Sunday School every Sunday.
Ouch. Our Sunday School does that. But most of our membership is already over 50 or retired.
BTW, Krispy Kreme kicks Dunkin' Donuts in the, um, hole any day of the week.
Gluttony...yep this is easily a bigger problem from a health standpoint than alcohol. But you aren't going to hear much preachin' on that.
Stuffitis....this is easily the BIGGEST issue in terms of what keeps Christians in America from doing what God would have us do in terms of caring for others. We are totally undisciplined in our stewardship. It isn't a physical health issue except to the extent that it stresses us out physically.
Again...doubt that any church is going to make a similar statement about loans/credit cards as you have in this statement against alcohol. They may talk about tithing, but they aren't telling people to cut up their credit cards.
One more form of idolatry - tv.
Do you expect a resolution regarding the American tendency to waste a good portion of our lives worshiping at the idol of television? Not God glorifying. Certainly not productive.
Jim --
If we're going to start straining the gnats of the stats, then we have to strain all the gnats of all the stats. For example, if we want to say, "well, we have to add in a factor of 3 to account for all the bar fights and domestic fights to really get the scope of the problem of alcohol," we have to look at the other comp factors -- like people merely -injured- by accidents and not actually killed to compare them.
My opinion is that something which kills "X" number of people probably injures "Y" number of people in proportion to "X". Cancer kills so many people per 100K, but it effects a lot more than that. You have to baseline someplace to make a comparison.
The alcohol stats are at the CDC website, which I think I linked someplace in this thread, and they include all alcohol-related deaths -- both due to health issues, and due to car wrecks or whatever.
Josh: e-mail me.
f r a n k (at) i t u r k (dot) c o m.
Jan --
Here's why I would -never- argue that the SBC should also demonize cheeseburgers, donuts, dating, cigarettes, smokeless chew, or DIY home repair: the problem is not becoming consistent with the first mistake.
The problem is that the first action is a mistake.
The entire -point- of baptist cooperation is -not- health and welfare: it's the Gospel, and saving people from an eternity in hell.
Nobody gets saved if everyone is sober, skinny, tobacco-free and still in their actual sins rather than their man-made sins. What if we made a resolution at the convention that the Gospel is the power to save, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile, and that the SBC would only take action related to being the hands and feet of the Gospel?
It is an immense waste of time, effort and a harm to the Gospel to beat people up over things which are not even sins but are in fact merely a matter of culture and taste. The -vast- majority of people in the US drink responsibly and ever -temperately-, if we can use that term here without manning the portcullis. Why demand that all of them stop drinking because of the hadnful who, frankly, have a problem that needs a bigger solution than the hard scowls of people who don't even know how to open a beer bottle?
Frank,
You can have five beers
Every day without getting drunk
If you space them out
Someone having five drinks in a day isn't sipping at one for two hours, it's true. But that doesn't mean they're pouring one right after the other, either. I'm not talking about the guy who goes to the bar at night and drinks steadily until closing time. I'm just saying that 5/day, without defining other factors like time and food intake, is not a meaningful standard. Besides, who gave the CDC the authority to define these things? It's kind of like some of the ridiculous signs AA says indicate alcoholism. Most of them apply to me, but I haven't been drunk in over twenty years, and I often go days without a drink. "Hi, I'm Dave, and I'm an alcoholic . . ."
Also, and I suppose this is going beyond the topic here, it makes a difference what you're drinking. Given the same total alcohol volume, drinks with higher alcohol concentration and lower carb content take longer to leave your system. Liquor stays longer than wine, dry wines stay longer than sweet, wine stays longer than beer, light beers stays longer than others. Heavy, dark beers have the shortest alcoholic effect of all.
--------------
Jan,
Five drinks per day, every day, would probably indicate a bad habit. For the record, I don't actually drink that much. Not even close. But I suppose on some holidays, between dinner (noon) and bed time, I might have that many glasses of wine. Of course, there's a tremendous amount of food going down with it at those times. On those occasions, by the way, this is not gluttony, but feasting.
Kjos:
So are you saying that you have 5 or more a day?
I'm just asking, because we're concerned about you.
Frank...totally agree!!! The problem - whatever it may be - isn't solved by dealing with the problem to the exclusion of the gospel. Drunk or sober, fat or thin, productive or not we ought to focus on the gospel instead of on the "issue."
Frank, I can't afford five drinks a day.
By the way, this:
Nobody gets saved if everyone is sober, skinny, tobacco-free and still in their actual sins rather than their man-made sins. What if we made a resolution at the convention that the Gospel is the power to save, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile, and that the SBC would only take action related to being the hands and feet of the Gospel?
It is an immense waste of time, effort and a harm to the Gospel to beat people up over things which are not even sins but are in fact merely a matter of culture and taste. The -vast- majority of people in the US drink responsibly and ever -temperately-, if we can use that term here without manning the portcullis. Why demand that all of them stop drinking because of the hadnful who, frankly, have a problem that needs a bigger solution than the hard scowls of people who don't even know how to open a beer bottle?
. . . is the best point ever made on this subject. Anyone with any sense will now shut up.
Kjos:
So you're stealing your booze?
Dude, you need help.
I do need help. You want to make a donation?
I give up. I can see I'm not going to win, here.
Frank,
A resolution affirming the gospel at the SBC?! Puhleeze...only if you also affirm baptism by the right sort of administrator. :p
That said, I would point out that one of the reasons I go to the gym 3 days on and one day off and back again is because I am a Christian. That is, my faith leads me to take care of my health. I also have other reasons for this that are, ironically health related. The point is that the Gospel does extend to these other areas of life.
However, I understand what you mean here. The point of cooperation between churches isn't to write Magisterial decrees about the demmin likker and the diabolical donut. The point is to preach the gospel and make disciples so people don't die in their sins. I agree with Dr. Boyce (I think it was him at least) that said a resolution on alcohol was not germane to the business of the Convention.
(Of course, he was also running booze from KY to SC to Dr. Broadus' wife because apparently she didn't like the stuff they served down in SC at the time.)
Stephen,
Them's fightin' words about Krispy Kreme. The home office is 5 miles from my house and I get mine from Store number 2 on Stratford Road just off I-40.
Frank,
Interesting post. Numbers impress but have a tendency to be darn slippery. For example, you cite "21,081 alcohol-related deaths were reported in [2004], including all deaths from alcoholic liver disease" and suggest you're imagining "the worst-case scenario." Yet on the opening page of CDC's Alcoholic & Public Health section, it says: "In 2001, there were approximately 75,000 deaths
attributable to excessive alcohol use". I'm wondering how we account for the staggering drop in 2004. I think I know why but perhaps others may know.
But even more, I'm wondering why we do not also consider there were "over 2 million hospitalizations and over 4
million emergency room visits for alcohol-related conditions."
Figure also that in your numbers, Frank, you seem to suggest that alcohol abuse is 5 or more drinks a day in any given day. You write: "32% of those had 5 or more drinks on at least one day; that means
roughly 59 million Americans abused alcohol at least once in 2004." (emphasis mine). But according to CDC, they classify three categories:
moderate drinking--"no more than 2 drinks per day for men (1 for women)
heavy drinking--"typically defined as consuming
an average of more than 2 drinks per day (more than 1 for women)
binge drinking--"[a] pattern of drinking usually correspond[ing] to more
than 4 drinks on a single occasion for men (3 for women).
I'm not sure how the above squares with the five drinks you mentioned. And, it needs to be said that a standard drink, as the CDC defines it, is 13.7 grams of pure alcohol which equals one 12 oz beer or one 5oz glass of wine. That means if a typical female calls for a refill of her wine glass at dinner, she pretty much forfeits her status as a moderate drinker. And the 5 or so mentioned in the thread is way over the line into heavy drinking.
The point you make, my friend, at least from my view, is both awkward and irrelevant:
"the moral argument against alcohol use has to take into account
that more people die by accident than from alcohol-related
circumstances annually; far more people die from the flu than from
alcohol-related circumstances."
Not from my side of the street it doesn't. Considering deaths from unintended accidents in with deaths from purposeful, self-induced intoxication is morally absurd. That my neighbor falls off his ladder and kills himself many times more often than drunk drivers die in auto accidents or livers shrivel up and rot because of alcohol consumption must necessarily affect the moral argument against alcohol simply makes no sense to me. Sorry.
With that, I am...
Peter
Cent,
You said: Just because something bad happens in a microscopically-small part of the population participating in some activity, it doesn't mean that the activity itself must stop.
The point I am trying to make is that you refer to only a part of the impact of alcohol on the population. If we "just" look at deaths, maybe. But it is not just deaths.
I agree that the Bible give no specific prohibition against consumption of alcohol. I likewise agree that the Bible commends alcoholic wine as a blessing and for our joy. I do not have a problem with people who drink (though I do not), even if they drink in my presence.
But the Bible does warn against abuse of alcohol, and I understand when people want to remove the "easier" item--drink--from the mix (since removing the other, namely Man, breaks one of the commandments) in order to avoid the problems associated with it.
After all, we live in a nation willing to make kids wear bicycle helmets and motorcycle riders wear helmets (even though a very small portion of the population as a whole, and even the participating population in specific die as a result).
Peter --
I am extremely pleased that you have engaged this particular post.
Here is where the moral equivalence comes in: every single accident occurs due to voluntary participation in activities which can possibly result in death. Voluntary drinking is not any more or less voluntary or dangerous than voluntary ladder-climbing.
Now, you may narrow the scope and say, "That's not my point: my point is that drinking more than two drinks and getting behind the wheel of a car is far more dangerous than climbing a ladder." And I would agree with you. The problem is that this doesn't represent the vast majority of alcohol users.
Some people climb broken ladders; some people don't know how to turn off the breaker panel; some people drive drunk. That doesn't mean we should outlaw ladders, breaker boxes and alcohol.
Here's where I found the CDC statistics I cited:
Alcohol fast facts
And in the interest of full disclosure, I misread the page: it does say these are deaths which do not include homicides and accidents.
To decode the "75,000" number on the Alcohol main page at CDC, got here:
Sum of all alcohol-related impacts in 2001
And -that- said, that's an exteremly broad consideration of the impact of alcohol. I'd like to see a similar set of facts on the impact of fried chicken, or donuts, or coffee.
Looking forward to hearing more from you.
Gene,
I live in WS. What church do you attend?
[if you don't mind me asking]
I'm a member of Shepherd's Fellowship in Greensboro. With the price of gas on the rise, I'm hunting for a church home closer to Winston, as I live off Robinhood Road and SFoG is located off Elm/Eugene St. in Gso. As you know, that means I have about an hour drive one way every Sunday, and if I want to participate in the greater life of the church, I have to commute.
I've visited Lewisville Baptist, where Les Puryear pastors and Rosemont Baptist is on my list. Currently, I'm spending time in the Sunday night service @ Redeemer Presbyterian. They are a separate group from the morning service, and most of them are around my age. I also enjoy gathering around the Lord's Table every Sunday night. I have a friend pastoring in High Point who has moved to this part of town and is talking about the possibility of starting a new work. I'd like to find an SBC church with a Reformed/Sov. Grace pastor whose congregation actually "gets it" and isn't "phoning it in." LBC is coming along, and since I know Les, I'm contemplating that move. I used to be at Beck's, but there are issues there that I'd rather not get into here. If you know of any churches that I could add to my list, please let me know.
"In 2001, there were approximately 75,000 deaths attributable to excessive alcohol use". I'm wondering how we account for the staggering drop in 2004. I think I know why but perhaps others may know.
>>>Well, if I may change hats here to my public health education hat (since that's the lion's share of my graduate level education) I may be able to help you both interpret these numbers.
Let's take just one portion:
just under half of these 34,833 "harmful effects" are conditions in which alcohol was a cofactor that exacerbated a chronic condition or was the chronic condition (for example alcoholic psychosis). By contrast to psychosis, alcohol did not cause a person's epilepsy or Laryngeal cancer. It may have triggered a fatal epileptic seizure, but it did not cause epilepsy, but it's listed as "chronic" because epilepsy itself is a chronic condition as is cancer.
The deaths are calculated against the ARDI report called Total Deaths Data Set, United States 2001. So, the number is culled from there.
Part of the 75k is related to accidents and homicides, the rest is attributable to a combination of causes, acute and subacute/contributing, but even those
numbers aren't quite a straightforward as we might think.
There's another report called:
Relative Risk and Alcohol-Attributable Fractions Data Set
In this report each "harmful effect" receives an attributable fraction with 1.0 equal to 100 percent of the attributable fraction, and, where applicable, a relative risk is calculated. So, a death attributed directly to a chronic alcohol problem obviously has a RR rating of 1 or 100 percent of the cause is related to alcoholic consumption.
For example:Alcohol abuse
Male 1.00
Female 1.00
By way of contrast, others may vary. To illustrate:
There were, in this reporting year, 703 machine injuries. The AAF is .18. Why? Because only 121 such injuries are attributed to alcohol. Some easy ones: Alcohol poisoning
Male 1.00
Female 1.00
Homicide
Male 0.47
Female 0.47
There were in this reporting cycle: 16,288 homicides. 7,655 are alcohol related. So that's the .47 number for you. So, 47 percent of homicides were related to alcohol.
So, this is how it works: AAF multiplied by Total Deaths
where
* AAF = alcohol-attributable fraction for the cause of death
* TotalDeaths = total number of deaths by cause for a given demographic group
The reason the numbers fluctuate sometimes wildly yearly is because causes of death in each year/reporting cycle also fluctuate. An easy example: if nobody dies of alcohol poisoning in 08, but 1000 die of it 09 (or vice versa), the reason for the change is apparent. It's just related to when and how people die in any given time frame and, to another extent, on how coroners report it. Where both of you can also look is at the numbers related to underreporting, which are often anecdotal and are harder to track down. Peter, being in Atlanta, you could try to contact CDC in Decatur to see if they can help you do that.
Relative risk is a bit tricky to explain, simply because its rather complicated mathematically. See:
http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/ardi/
He...aafractions.asp.
Also, any good health educator should say that RR is meaningless for any individual case anyway.
There are also some oddballs in this report I'm a little unsure about. For example the AADR says:
Breast cancer (females only) 0 352 352
Total deaths: 41,393
So, I'd expect an AAF of: under .01, but they list only RR's. I'm guessing they don't list any AAF's for deaths that a proportionally under a certain percentage and give the RR instead, I would guess on the premise that alcohol consumption was or may have been a contributing factor/cofactor.
This is why I paid the $12 to upgrade Haloscan: so Gene could post at his pleasure.
That stats are helpful, especially when addressing the SBC resolution. Pro-abstentionists take a few common routes.
1. It was ok then, but not now.
2. The "weaker brother" should always have veto power over the stronger. (but most have proven that they don't understand what "weaker brother" means.
3. Abstention is the morally superior position. (perfect will vs permissive will)
4. It will hurt our witness. In other words, if an unbeliever sees a believer drinking alcohol then they won't get saved. (this one boggles the mind and is a stunning example of circular logic)
5. Drinking alcohol has always been sinful. This is, I believe, Peter's position and obviously negates the need for 1-4.
Frank,
Be my guest, brother. Make involuntarily falling off ladders morally equivalent to voluntarily drinking and driving. I think that's swell...absurd, but swell. You should go on the lecture trail with that one.
Proposition: "every single accident occurs due to voluntary participation in activities which can possibly result in death. Voluntary drinking is not any more or less voluntary or dangerous than voluntary ladder-climbing."
What you've just done, Frank, is make moral distinctions virtually impossible. If I walk out on my front porch and the fan falls on my head and I die, that is lumped in with voluntary drinking and driving.
As for Gene's tome on numbers, all could have been summed up with this statement on averages the Quikstat page records: "There are approximately 75,000 deaths attributable to excessive alcohol use each year in the United States..."
Since I've already offered as morally absurd considering deaths from unintended accidents in with deaths from purposeful, self-induced intoxication, not to mention the total irrelevance in spinning webs along these lines, I suppose I'll leave you guys (and gals) to speak among yourselves. Have fun.
With that, I am...
Peter
Peter: Is it not true that, on your view, these statistics are irrelevant? After all, if consumption of alcohol is sinful, then statistics for or against alcohol consumption don't change that fact. After all, we don't have stats on the damage caused by lying and we don't need them to tell us it is wrong.
Frankly, the fact that the SBC keeps churning out these resolutions suggests that we aren't quite so sure that we are on strong scriptural ground. After all, we don't have resolutions against murder.
Peter: Your logic is failing you regarding Frank's comparisons. Involuntary falling of ladders is not comparable to voluntary drinking and driving. Climbing ladders is voluntary, falling off them isn't. Drinking and driving is voluntary. Accidents resulting from them are involuntary.
Bill is correct. Either the bible is for Wine Drinking, or it is not.
To say that the bible is against drinking wine denies scripture.
To use societal facts to argue against wine drinking denies the sufficiency of scripture
Neither is a place a christian should be at.
As for Gene's tome on numbers, all could have been summed up with this statement on averages the Quikstat page records: "There are approximately 75,000 deaths attributable to excessive alcohol use each year in the United States..."
Except, of course, that's not what the report says, Peter. The report does not reflect deaths attributable to "excessive" alcohol use in a blanket manner. Rather, they are reporting deaths where alcohol was a factor or cofactor.
The report is VERY clear about this:
Certain conditions (e.g., alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver) are, by definition, caused by alcohol consumption. These conditions are classified as being 100% alcohol-attributable and are reported in ARDI as having an AAF of 1.00.
Elsewise, the reports draw a distinction between sorts of chronic conditions and those in which alcohol may have contributed as a cofactor. That's not convertible with saying that there are 75k deaths attributable to excessive alcohol use, and, on top of that, there's a hidden statistic in there related to the number of deaths attributed to that cause in ratio to all other deaths.
If you have to misrepresent the numbers by stripping out qualifications, that speaks either to the weakness of your argument or the emotive nature of it. There's a better way to make your argument, one where you don't have to make such reductionistic statements. I've already told you how, and that was by referring to underreporting. If you would bother yourself to read the reports, you'd see this embedded in the report. Since you didn't do this, I'll do it for you: The report says clearly:
ARDI may underestimate the actual number of alcohol-related deaths and YPLL in the United States for several reasons. First, BRFSS data on alcohol use, which are used to calculate indirect estimates of AAFs, are based on self-reports, which tend to underestimate the true prevalence of alcohol use because of sampling noncoverage—that is, the inability to reach certain high-risk populations, such as youth and young adults—and the underreporting of alcohol use by survey respondents (Nelson, 2001). Second, BRFSS prevalence estimates are based on alcohol use during the past 30 days. As a result, former drinkers, who may have discontinued drinking because of health problems, are not included in the calculation of AAFs. Third, ARDI does not include estimates of alcohol-attributable deaths for several conditions (e.g., tuberculosis, pneumonia, and hepatitis C) for which alcohol is widely believed to be an important risk factor but where the Scientific Work Group was unable to find a suitable pooled risk estimate. Fourth, ARDI exclusively uses the underlying cause of death from vital statistics to identify alcohol-related conditions and does not consider contributing causes of death that may also be alcohol-related. Finally, age-specific estimates of AAFs were only available for motor-vehicle traffic deaths even though alcohol-involvement is known to vary widely by age, particularly for acute conditions, and is generally much greater for deaths involving youth and young adults. This limitation is likely to have resulted in a substantial underestimate of YPLL from deaths due to acute conditions.
All of this is there. I'll gladly answer any questions about these stats for either you or Frank, as I am capable of placing some critical distance between myself and my position on this issue for the sake of helping either one of you understand public health statistics to which you are both making an appeal. All you have to do is play nice and ask.
You said to Frank:
Be my guest, brother. Make involuntarily falling off ladders morally equivalent to voluntarily drinking and driving. I think that's swell...absurd, but swell. You should go on the lecture trail with that one.
That's an assertion, not an argument. I'm afraid that around these parts you'll have to argue your point and refrain from characterizing what others say.
Peter:
Don't uncork the sarcasm genie here. He lives here, and he's a bad dude.
Let me see if I can line out what you're saying, and you tell me if I have misunderstood it:
[1] You are saying in this last comment that people who climb ladders do not intend to fall of them, yes?
[2] However, you are also saying that people who drink and drive intend to cause an accident, right?
Here's what I would say instead:
[A] All people who climb ladders assume a certain degree of risk by climbing ladders. Some people climb ladders which, frankly, don't meet the OSHA standard for good repair. Some people frankly don't have the sense of balance. Some people are just unlucky. As a percent of the general population, those people kill themselves at a certain rate. That fact does not make climbing ladders (or any of the other accidental causes of death tracked by the CDC, aggregated as the "accidental death" stat) an activity which ought to be made illegal. It also does not force us to make any moral demands on people who climb ladders -- because the Bible doesn't call on us to do that.
[B] In the same way, people who drink assume a certain degree of risk. The Bible doesn't call drinking a behavior which requires no care or caution: it calls drinking a blessing which also requires some kind of prudent grasp of what one is dealing with. But in that, it turns out that people who drink die at a rate lower than the rate of accidental death. That means that people who are drinking are doing something less risky than those who are climbing ladders or fixing electrical outlets -- the rate of fatality is lower. Thus, if we aren't going to make climbing ladders (et al.) illegal, we ought not to make drinking per se illegal.
This is not a very complicated argument -- as it is based on the kind of moral reasoning you're trying to employ via Dr. Nott, but it applies it to behaviors of equal social and personal risk.
You may try to turn it around or ignore the force of the argument, but it stands pretty well.
Peter also said this:
What you've just done, Frank, is make moral distinctions virtually impossible. If I walk out on my front porch and the fan falls on my head and I die, that is lumped in with voluntary drinking and driving.The CDC reports roughly 112,000 deaths by accidental cause, and of those, 3/4ths are from participating in risky behavior: handling hazardous materials or equipment, climbing or working at risky heights, the perennial problem of riding in a car, and handling firearms. It's pretty interesting the lack of nuance Pastor Peter wants to use in viewing alcohol deaths and the microscope he wants to hold up to things which might be compared to alcohol use.
It seems to me that if the four major categories of accidental death are due to voluntary actions, they present the same moral dilemma Pastor Lumpkins wants to affirm alcohol presents.
Interesting thread here.
If nothing else, Cent, you've proven really well that we dare not use statistical studies or other societal standards to determine right and wrong.
What Peter Lumpkin has successfully done is demonstrate that if you live by the sword, you die by the sword. That is, if you do use stat's to make a point, someone more informed can use stats to prove that your point is pointless.
Kind of like appealling to polls to prove that we should be outlawing abortion, after all, lots of people hate it...we all know where that will go after the very next poll.
Excellent job of pointing out the out-of-bounds in this discussion.
Now if Lumpkin and others could only stick to Scripture, we'd get somewhere.
Daryl: I think you'll find that Peter's main arguments (at least from series of posts on his blog) are from scripture, or rather he is citing other scholars who are using scripture.
In my opinion their exegesis is shockingly bad, but they gave it a shot. Stats are more of a tool of the Resolution 5 folks, who really don't have any scripture to back up the resolution.
Bill,
That's true, but I would equate shockingly bad exegisis with not using Scripture at all (or worse).
Let me ask this question again:
Is it right to change our position from biblical to 'activist' just because of the 'someone we know died' argument?
Kinda takes the focus off the gospel doesn't it?"
Frank ---
I'm not going to participate (beyond this disclaimer) in the present discussion. But I hope you use it as a springboard to reopen the larger, Biblical discussion (hinted at by you and Gene; explicitly mentioned by David Carlson, who posts as "dac") on the sufficiency of Scripture.
I think it worth mentioning that if Pastor Lumpkin wants to make a case for prohibition in the civic sphere, he should be free to use the statistics (in a responsible way). But a Biblical case, i.e., a case that will bind the consciences of the members of his (or any) church should be made from the Bible, not from the CDC.
Crigler:
We will get there.
and only God knows how many lives have been saved from drinking alcohol: in reducing cholesterol, high blood pressure, cancer risk, etc. Who knew that God would bestow such benefits to such a devilish drink!
Gene, glad you're enjoying Redeemer. The 5:00 service is great from what I hear. It's my home church, my wife and I go to the early service.
BTW, we met once, I did something stupid and offended you. I hope that we can make amends one day.
Anyway, in regards to the post in question, I have only two things to add.
1) Dunkin' rawks.
2) From what I can see concerning the logic used by those arguing against the drink, we should also outlaw intercourse.
Scott: Exactly. That is so exactly right.
So, who is going to write that resolution? Then I can write a series of posts called "God gave NO" (or maybe not).
So, let's see...
Approx. 21,000 alcohol related deaths occurred in '05, compared with 1,210,000 abortions during that same year.
And the SBC and guys like Lumpkins are expending their energy on which issue?
Someone call me when this denomination is ready to pick up the banner for a real plague in this land, rather than attempting to punch holes in God-breathed Scripture by condemning something that has been ordained for use in one of the major means of grace, for cryin' out loud!
And wine which makes man's heart glad... Psalm 104:15
Is there biblical justification to assume that wine means anything other than wine? What I mean is does it translate into all alcoholic drinks? Does [whiskey] make man's heart glad? Does [beer] make man's heart glad? Does a [margarita] make man's heart glad?
There appears to be a difference in drink and strong drink and I'm unclear as to the distinguishing differences between the two.
Wine seems to mean wine [not grape juice], so is the strong drink something other than wine [noted above]?
I ask these questions not as someone against drinking, but as someone who is maturing.
Also, on a separate note, does the Vermont Teddy Bear commercial annoy anyone else?
Nevergall,
Strong drink is not precisely the same as wine, but it is certainly approved by God, as seen in Deuteronomy 14, in which the Israelites are instructed to feast before the Lord, buying -- with their tithe! -- whatever they desire, including wine or strong drink. Since there is no reason to believe that it is anything but the alcoholic effect of wine that makes the heart glad, I would say, yes, beer and whisky are included in the Psalm 104 passage.
I know I'm a little late to the party, but hopefully someone will stumble upon my question and provide some feedback.
I am just wondering what the biblical definition of drunk is? I am in full agreement that wine/beer/whisky is not forbidden by scripture. I also see Kjos' point that the alcholic effect is what makes the heart glad.
That being the case, at what point does one cross the line between glad heart and drunk? From memory, it would seem that most of the biblical examples of drunk included some sort of passing out.
Any thoughts?
I am still unclear as to the justification of equating all alcoholic drinks with wine. Wine is what makes the heart glad.
Moderation is not based on the number of glasses we consume, it is based on the percentage of alcohol we consume. Wine can be processed to contain a higher percentage of alcohol. In reference to Deuteronomy, could this mixture not be what is considered [strong drink]?
I think I'm splitting hairs here! Wine seems to be the only drink mentioned in relation to alcohol. That being the case I was considering what it may to do to my testimony if I ordered a Jack w/a splash. I don't want to over analyze this and will stick to following my conscience.
Nevergall,
You may be interested in the NET Bible's notes regarding "strong drink." And interestingly, the Holman CSB translates this word as "beer" in every case (well, as far as I can tell).
See? This is why DTS is losing credibility with Baptists: they admit that the Bible talks about strong drink in more than one way.
Shocking.
Thanks for the reference. If there is a distinguishing difference [including ingredients] between wine and strong drink, is it safe to assume that wine [and only wine] is what is referred to in Psalm 104? Not alcohol in general.
Nevergall,
I don't think it is helpful to be examining a list of ingredients in order to determine what is permissible and what is not. That kind of thinking completely avoids the verse "It is not what goes into a man that makes him unclean but what comes out of him" applies here. I suggest that the definition of drunk would be the point at which what starts coming out of your mouth and the accompanying behaviour is creating a problem.
Daryl,
I appreciate the comment. I believe Spurgeon when he says:
"O that men were wise enough to know how to use this gladdening product of the vine."
I am not into extra biblical activities or ingredient checking and I apologize if my comment suggested otherwise.
I have been given some helpful resources as to the difference between wine and strong drink and if these differences are corret, my original question still applies. Just with a different approach. Wine [yayin] seems to be the term used in Psalm 104. Not strong drink. If wine is what makes the heart happy, how do we translate this into other forms of alcohol [strong drink].
I am not suggesting strong drink is wrong, I'm saying wine is specifically used in the Psalm, not strong drink.
There are many times wine and strong drink are used together. They are not in this Psalm.
Nevergall,
Psalm 104 aside, D. Kjos pointed you to Deut. 14 where strong drink is suggested as an option for the Israelites to spend their tithe on.
As for your specifics, how specific should we get? Should only that specific kind of wine that is written about be used and all others avoided? Should we limit ourselves in Communion to only partake of that very specific type of wine the Lord used to institute His remembrance?
Mark
If wine is what makes the heart happy, how do we translate this into other forms of alcohol [strong drink].
Everyone I know who enjoys knocking back some Old Grand-Dad assures me that it definitely makes their hearts "happy."
The church my wife grew up in (Plymouth Brethren - closed) split hairs to the point that alcohol was bad but...communion with Welch's instead of real wine was equally bad. Go figure, apparently Jesus drank grape juice when socializing with his buddies, but switched to alcoholic wine for the Passover.
Seems like you can't have it both ways, either it needs to be both/and or neither.
That's what can happen when the ingredient list or what exact type of alcohol was THIS verse talking about and how relevant that is becomes the issue.
Could not the ancient Hebrews have possibly talked like us?
What does "going out for a few drinks" mean. What does "wobbly-pop" mean? What does "something a little stronger" mean?
Surely if we don't split hairs, theres not a lot of reason to expect the Hebres folk to have done so...unless your trying to justify the wackiness I noted above, or make alcohol somehow off-limits.
We do love to complicate things don't we?
Ye, we do love to complicate things.
It seems to me that the need to define exactly what wine is and whether it should be interpreted narrowly (fermented grape juice only) or broadly (to include beer, cider, distilled liquors, etc.) is born of a need for some kind of rule to go by. Where Scripture gives no such rule, neither should we.
Which brings us to the one rule Scripture has given, i.e., don't be drunk, and the question that has been asked here, what is "drunk"? This is hard to define, but anyone who drinks knows when enough is enough, and it is not difficult to discern at all. Each man's conscience must rule his own behavior.
Are we going to live by the letter of the law (and make it up if we can't find it in writing), or by the Spirit? Are we going to live by circumcision, or by "faith working through love"? This is all about manifesting the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5), not about following laws and guidelines. "If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit." If we live by the Spirit, walking by the Spirit (in this case, staying sober) will come naturally.
A rule telling us how much we can drink is like putting a hat on a bad haircut. It only masks the real problem.
Kjos - thanks for the interaction with my question. I appreciate it.
To clarify, I wasn't trying to put "a hat on a bad haircut," (great analogy) as much as I was trying to see if there is some nuance to the word used for drunk that would be different than our current uses of the word.
Now, where did I put that hat . . .
David: "It seems to me that the need to define exactly what wine is and whether it should be interpreted narrowly (fermented grape juice only) or broadly (to include beer, cider, distilled liquors, etc.)"
Exactly! Frank mentioned that the same term for wine [yayin] is used in both Psalm 104 and when Noah got tipsy. I recognize wine has alcohol. I'm not referring to Juicy Juice vs. wine. I'm talking about wine vs. Johnnie Walker.
Many times throughout Scripture wine and strong drink are used in the same passages. This would indicate [to me anyway] that, while wine has alcohol, strong drink contains a higher percentage.
My question was simply, why does Psalm 104 only make the case for wine making the heart glad?
ADB,
<clintonspeak>Well, it depends on what you mean by "word" . . .</clintonspeak>
-------------
Nevergall,
I'm not sure why you truncated my statement, but the part you omitted is important. I said:
It seems to me that the need to define exactly what wine is and whether it should be interpreted narrowly (fermented grape juice only) or broadly (to include beer, cider, distilled liquors, etc.) is born of a need for some kind of rule to go by. Where Scripture gives no such rule, neither should we.
Yes, I know you're talking about wine vs. liquor; but your question misses the point. Psalm 104 is not an apologetic for wine, or any of the other things mentioned. The plethora of things not mentioned, along with their many possible variations, are not approved or disapproved (in this passage). They just aren't mentioned. It wasn't the Psalmist's purpose to lay out a complete menu. The Psalm is a doxology to God for the great things he has done for his creatures.
13 He watereth the hills from his chambers: the earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works. 14 He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth; 15 And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart.
To be consistent, you'll also have to ask if it is only bread that strengthens a man's heart, or is meat good, too? Is grass alone good for cattle? How about alfalfa and grain? You'll have to look elsewhere for those answers (e.g., Deuteronomy 25:4 for feeding grain to cattle). Since Scripture elsewhere commends meat, vegetables and strong drink, we know that they are good, and are not excluded by their absence in one passage.
Thank you David
David while you state that "- To spell that out as clearly as possible, someone who is abusing alcohol has the same likelihood of dying by accident as by alcohol-related circumstances; he is 5 times more likely to die by cancer than by alcohol-related circumstances; he is almost 6 times more likely to die from heart disease than by alcohol-related circumstances.
- The average alcohol user is 3 times more likely to die by accident than through alcohol-related circumstances, 16 times more likely to die from cancer than through alcohol-related circumstances, and almost 20 times more likely to die from heart disease than through alcohol-related circumstances."
You have NOT stated that those using alcohol are likely to die at an earlier age of each of these diseases listed than those who do not use alcohol.
The death rate is around 10-20 years earlier for each of those people who use alcohol for each of those diseases.
In other countries (such as my own) this is still classed as "alcohol related causes" which elevates the death rate from this casue substantially.
In our country "Alcohol caused death rates between 1990-97, were consistently higher for males than for females. In 1997, out of 3,290 deaths caused by risky levels of drinking, 70% were male and due mainly to liver cirrhosis, road injuries, stroke, suicide or alcohol dependence and 30% were female, due mainly to stroke and alcoholic liver cirrhosis.
In 1997, older people (aged 40-70 years) were more likely to die from chronic conditions, related to long term alcohol misuse, and younger people (aged 15-29 years) from acute conditions related to bouts of intoxication.
(quoted directly from www.alcohol.gov.au/)
To imply that there are equitable rates of death among alcohol users and non users is substantially false, when you have not taken into account those long term users who die of other chronic conditions exacerbated by their alcohol usage, and contributing to earlier than normal deaths.
Steve
Steve -
you have conflated use and abuse.
When your side of the aisle stops doing that, there can be reasonable dialog.
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