DALLAS (ABP) — Two prominent players in the Southern Baptist Convention's debate over alcohol consumption have taken it to a new forum — a major secular newspaper.
On July 15, the Dallas Morning News ran an essay by Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in North Carolina, supporting a June SBC resolution that urged total abstinence from alcohol. The paper also ran a rebuttal — opposing the resolution and supporting temperance — by Benjamin Cole, pastor of Parkview Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas.
Cole told Associated Baptist Press July 18 he was pleased with the articles, although “the medium of newspapers” is not necessarily the ideal forum for the “rigorous debate” needed when it comes to Baptists and alcohol.
“That many Southern Baptists fail to understand how a position of moderation and temperance falls securely under the umbrella of [a belief in biblical] inerrancy goes to show that either inerrancy was never the issue at all in the conservative resurgence, or that those who have articulated the inerrantist position never fully understood that some of us would believe it,” Cole said.
He was referring to the denomination's 25-year-old struggle between fundamentalists, who asserted a belief in inerrancy, and moderates who allowed for more liberty. The inerrantists won, and now control the denomination's power structure and institutions.
Cole told ABP he believes the debate centers not on alcohol, but “that the qualifications for denominational service are being ever tightened by the imposition of doctrines and social traditions that are irrelevant to the gospel of Jesus Christ or, in some instances, contrary to our Baptist distinctives of freedom of conscience.”
The non-binding SBC measure, which suggests that Southern Baptists who drink alcohol should not be chosen for leadership positions within the denomination, also prohibited the manufacture and consumption of alcohol.
The resolution's authors listed four reasons to abstain from alcohol: 1) Alcohol use leads to physical, mental, and emotional damage; 2) Alcohol use has led to injuries and deaths related to drunk driving; 3) The breakup of families can be directly and indirectly attributed to alcohol; and 4) The use of alcohol can lead “down a path of addiction …and toward the use of other kinds of drugs.”
The document also maintained that “some religious leaders … are now advocating the consumption of alcoholic beverages based on a misinterpretation of the doctrine of our freedom in Christ.” Delegates approved the measure by a lopsided vote June 14, during the denomination's annual meeting.
In their essays, both Akin and Cole addressed the measure's key points and even acknowledged family members who died from alcohol-related health problems. The difference in their opinions, however, involved what caused that pain. For Akin, alcohol itself was to blame for his father- and mother-in-law's alcoholism. Cole, on the other hand, blamed “abuse” for his own father's liver disease and untimely death.
Akin, in his essay called “Baptists and drinking: Abstinence policy offers loving safeguard,” said he would avoid alcohol entirely even if he wasn't a Christian — just because of the destruction it causes. For him, the potential for harm is not worth the risk of drinking.
“Some respond [to alcohol use] by saying the issue is not abstinence but moderation, arguing that the equivalent would be to abstain from eating and from marital sex to eliminate gluttony and sexual abuse,” Akin wrote. “There is a significant difference. We must eat to live. We must engage in sex to procreate. Alcohol is not a necessity.”
Furthermore, Akin wrote that Baptists should remember the “historical precedents for affirming abstinence.” Southern Baptists issued their first resolution on alcohol in 1886 and have added 61 statements endorsing the wisdom of abstinence. Baptist forebears, Akin said, understood the “issue of Christian liberty” and established a solid tradition for modern-day Baptists.
“This is not legalism but love,” he wrote. “This is not being anti-biblical but pro-brother and sister. This is not working for evil but for good. Given the world in which we live, I believe such a lifestyle honors Jesus and is the wise thing to do.”
Cole, on the other hand, disagreed with Akin's premise that alcohol is necessarily evil. His essay was titled “Baptists and drinking: Drunkenness, not alcohol, is the real problem.”
“One is hard-pressed to understand how all the biblical patriarchs, the apostles and most major figures of biblical literature drank wine as a staple of their diet without suffering the concomitant brain damage alleged in the resolution,” Cole wrote. “To blame the contents of a bottle for climbing divorce rates and highway deaths makes as much sense as blaming a bullet for a homicide.”
Cole also went on to question “how many of the resolution's supporters are card-carrying members of the National Rifle Association and would cry foul at the slightest threat to the 'manufacturing, advertising, distributing, or using' of firearms, to follow the wording of the abstinence resolution.”
Perhaps the most significant difference between Akin and Cole's respective arguments emerged in their interpretation of Scripture, since both men argued that Bible passages support their belief. As Cole told ABP July 17, “either the Bible is inerrant, or it isn't. Either the Scriptures teach that drinking is sin, or it doesn't. I really believe that this issue rests on whether Southern Baptists believe the Bible for what it actually says, or if they believe what their denominational heroes tell them it says.”
Akin was not available for comment on this story, but in his essay, he used verses endorsing love and edification as proof to support his position.
“[Abstinence from alcohol] is consistent with the ethic of love for believers and unbelievers alike (1 Corinthians 8:13; 9:19-22; 10:32-33),” he wrote. “Because I am an example to others, I will make certain no one ever walks the road of sorrow because they saw me take a drink and assumed, 'If it is all right for Danny Akin, it is all right for me.'”
Based on 1 Corinthians 6:12, Akin said, Christians should “refuse what enslaves.”
“Alcohol is a drug that can impair the senses and has a potential addictive element. Like addictive pornography, it should be avoided at all cost,” he wrote, noting later that joy should come from God and not alcohol, according to Ephesians 5:18.
For his part, Cole said Scripture supports his position, especially regarding blessings and freedom through salvation. He listed how, in the book of Numbers, God received wine offerings as “a soothing aroma.” He also noted Deuteronomy 14 and Isaiah 55, which explicitly allowed God's people to spend money on “wine or strong drink.”
“Not only do resolution supporters refuse to acknowledge the entire biblical teaching on the matter, they even read selectively from texts that they do cite,” Cole wrote. “For instance, most arguments for teetotaling reference the Nazarite vow of the Old Testament or the example of John the Baptist in the New Testament as evidence that those who abstain from alcohol achieve a greater level of holiness. What is missing from their argument is that the Nazarite abstained from vinegar and raisins, too, and never cut his hair. Moreover, John the Baptist chose locusts as his dietary supplement. I have yet to find a teetotaler who wears a ponytail or prefers bugs and honey with his morning coffee.”
In the end, attitude determines a lot when trying to be wise with alcohol, according to Akin.
“A smug, prideful abstainer without Jesus is just as lost as the poor drunkard,” he wrote. “Those who believe in abstinence should be gracious and humble, kind and caring, loving and patient.”
Akin's essay was intended for print in Baptist Press. The Dallas Morning News reprinted it and requested a rebuttal from Cole, who had spoken against the resolution at the SBC meeting.
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