DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (ABP) – Baptist critics are calling the Florida Baptist Convention's move to require alcohol abstinence from members of its boards and committees misguided.
The new measure was easily approved by the 1,258 messengers attending the annual meeting, held Nov. 12-13 in Daytona Beach. It requires all trustee nominees to “abstain from drinking alcoholic beverages and using any other recreational drugs.”
Popular Southern Baptist blogger Jerry Grace of Clinton, Miss., called the decision “foolish.” The position that many Southern Baptists take against any alcohol consumption doesn't come from Scripture, he said. Instead, it is a product of the women's temperance movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which resulted in Prohibition.
“I am not too pleased with our alcohol position, not because I am a champion for serving beer at Wednesday-night dinner … but rather because of the convoluted way in which we reached this much-beloved stance,” Grace, who attends First Baptist Church in Clinton, wrote on the blog SBCOuthouse.blogspot.com. “Our position on alcohol is one of recent historic origin, not scriptural.
“There are destructive behaviors quite acceptable and far more deadly than alcohol, which we not only ignore but quite willingly permit. When someone dies young from a heart attack because they are obese, the family he leaves behind to struggle for themselves is just as abandoned and struggling as that of the drunk who was killed in a car wreck.”
Timmy Brister, a student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., said before the vote that alcohol should not be a defining issue in Florida Baptist life.
“We are not looking for consensus over non-essential matters such as alcohol, but the gospel,” he wrote on his blog, timmybrister.com. “The issue here is not alcohol but the Baptist belief of the sufficiency of Scripture as well as future cooperation among those with whom we differ on non-essential matters.
“To have men like [former pastor of First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla.] Jerry Vines say that differing on non-essential matters such as alcohol shows that we are on ‘the road to apostasy' reveals just how badly we need new leadership with a new vision for the future,” Brister continued.
He added that the defining mark of Southern Baptists should not be whether or not they are “abstentionist” on the issue of alcohol use.
The Florida abstinence provision resulted from a pledge announced by John Sullivan, the convention's executive director, at the state's 2006 annual meeting. Reacting to a prolonged debate at the 2006 SBC annual meeting over the use of beverage alcohol, Sullivan said he was “embarrassed” by the protracted discussion and wanted to clarify Florida Baptists' position on the issue.
At the time, James Smith, editor of the Florida Baptist Witness, said he was “sympathetic to my brothers who argued against the resolution on the grounds that it pressed an ‘extra-biblical' standard on Southern Baptists.”
“But the idea that adopting a resolution which calls for total abstinence of alcohol is anti-biblical fails to take in account the full biblical witness — as well as the pernicious influence alcohol has had in our society and in the lives of countless individuals,” he wrote in a 2006 column. “In short, I say, three cheers for the alcohol resolution.”
Other state conventions have also heatedly debated the issue of alcohol. In Missouri, the state Baptist convention recently adopted a non-binding resolution called “Alcohol Use in America,” which recommends that those who drink alcohol not be “elected to serve as a trustee or member of any entity or committee” in the organization.
The Missouri convention's interim executive director, David Tolliver, began the state's annual meeting by addressing the issue.
“I understand that the Bible does not say, never says, ‘Thou shalt not drink,'” Tolliver said, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “It is also true to say that the Bible does not specifically refer to drinking as a sin. However … the only Christian position in this 21st century Show-Me State environment that we live in is total abstinence!”
At Missouri's November meeting, Roger Moran, a prominent conservative layman in the convention, urged messengers to accept the resolution. After lengthy debate, the resolution passed with 58 percent of the 863 votes cast.
Florida's bylaw amendment, which came as a recommendation from the convention's State Board of Missions, was added to an existing bylaw that requires nominees to have a personal relationship with Jesus, be a member of a church that contributes to the convention's budget, demonstrate good stewardship, and support the SBC's “Baptist Faith and Message” doctrinal statement.
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— Based on reporting by Hannah Elliott and Barbara Denman.
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Florida Baptists say alcohol use disqualifies leaders from service (11/16)