For the start of the new year, I’d like to spend some time answering a question I get often: How do you reconcile drinking and ministry?
Well, for starters, the two have a pretty long history together already:
Jesus gave out free wine, and Paul wrote on its healing properties.
Wine was a key component of both Jewish and Christian holy ritual.
Monks brewed beer, and the Puritans carried on the tradition.
The Protestant Reformation might not have even occurred without Germany’s beer halls.
America’s Founding Fathers distilled rum, and America’s first taxes focused on whiskey.
The cocktail was an American invention and arguably our first big cultural export.
So why all the demonizing of alcohol?
As awesome as the cocktails were, pre-Prohibition saloon culture had its drawbacks too. Alcoholism led to neglect of families, and drunk driving laws were slow to take shape. It’s difficult to know how widespread these problems really were, but the temperance movement took up the banner against alcohol under the larger campaign of the Social Gospel after the turn of the century. In 1919, the 18th Amendment made drinking illegal, and the effects were many:
– Canadian whiskey became a profitable —albeit illegal— import, and this ultra-smooth variety remained the dominant style for decades.
– America’s most inventive bartenders left the country or went underground, leading to a dark age of the American cocktail and the rise of moonshine and “bathtub gin”.
– Alcohol developed a stigma in churches that we still haven’t escaped.
– Speakeasies became such a thriving industry that drinking in the US actually increased during Prohibition.
Prohibition was a bad law driven through by a vocal minority, and it remains the only constitutional amendment ever to be repealed. The temperance supporters had some valid concerns, but the way they addressed them was rash, ineffective, and —dare I say it— intemperate. Making alcohol illegal didn’t lead to nationwide sobriety; it led to increased drinking in secret, and as my friends in recovery have taught me, that’s a fast track to addiction.
As an ordained minister with a mixology certificate, I live in this tension on a daily basis. Alcohol has played a crucial part in the shaping of our modern culture (even the shaping of modern religion), and I deeply appreciate the art of the cocktail. Still, it also needs to be taken in moderation, and I understand that there are many people who simply cannot be around alcohol without it triggering old wounds. As such, I have my own personal ethic of alcohol, and I’d encourage you to formulate one as well. Mine revolves around one rule that has some wide-reaching ramifications:
“No one ever drinks alone, and no one ever abstains alone.”
The first consequence of this rule is that I never drink when I’m alone. If I only drink with company, there is less risk of alcohol becoming a private coping mechanism. I always want alcohol to be associated with celebration and social interaction, never something I do in secret.
The rule also has interesting consequences when I’m at a party:
If no one around me is drinking, I don’t drink either.
If only one person is drinking, I have a drink with them so that they’re not drinking alone.
If only one person isn’t drinking, I also abstain out of respect for their choice.
If I am with two friends, and one is drinking, but the other isn’t, I just use my best judgment.
To me, alcohol is first and foremost about hospitality and social interaction, so my rules about drinking revolve around hospitality toward others. This actually dovetails quite well with my faith, where compassion toward others is a key value. My involvement in the bar scene and the cocktail world is all about meeting people in places of comfort and creating safe spaces for them. And really, isn’t that what our modern churches are all about?
1. Do you have a 12 step program in your ministry? 2. Your ministry, while good for some, seems exclusionary for those without the self control to be around alcohol without abusing themselves with it…and possibly others.
3. Wars, battles and lives have been lost through the centuries while some inebriated have failed at the job of vigilance and responsibility. Do you have designated non alcohol partakers to oversee those that cannot hold their liquor?
4. Would there be a problem just recognizing that people use alcohol, ministering to them where they are, without inviting others to join in with the inbibing which might lead those with the physical propensity to become addicted to ever start its use?
Matt, I don’t operate any type of 12-step program myself, but I’d love to get connected with a few more. I also want to make sure that the nature of this ministry is clear: I’m a chaplain who goes into bars and meets people where they are. I also dabble in mixology as a hobby and help with a number of Beer & Hymns and bar Bible Study events around town. As another minister put it beautifully, “I’m more interested in getting beer drinkers to sing hymns than in getting hymn singers to drink beer.”
I hoped that this post would make it clear that I have great respect for people who abstain, and when in their presence, I abstain as well because of that respect. There’s a reason that this piece is titled “a personal ethic.” This is my own code, and I encourage others who imbibe to contemplate why, how, when, and around whom they do so. Guardrails like these have been a great help in checking my own habits, so I encourage anyone who enjoys the occasional drink to have rules in place and surround themselves with people who can help enforce those rules.
Thanks for your comment, and I’d encourage you to look around the site and read the information on patreon.com/barchaplain to get a better idea of what this site and ministry are all about.
Tom I share a love of fine spirits and hand crafted ale. I also believe that how we treat it is where sin comes into play. If we make it our main focus and allow it to interfere with our spiritual life then it becomes sinful. Not the alcohol but our treatment of it. I have read of how many small breweries were in America before prohibition but it was a large number. they had to close and a thriving cottage industry was lost. We have a micro brew pub in downtown Goldsboro now. For me ale is something that goes with food and a white russian is my after dinner drink choice.
Well said, Billy! The brew pubs tend to be pretty strong proponents of moderation. Many of the ones I visit have on-site security and well trained bartenders, but on a more practical level, there are much cheaper ways to get drunk, so those environments don’t see as much excess as many other venues. Plus, they tend to attract a lot of other high-end businesses that can be great for a neighborhood.
I’m with you on the importance of not obsessing over alcohol. One of my hopes with this article was to reframe drinking as an issue of hospitality. If people are going to drink, I want them to do so openly and in moderation. If no one drinks alone or abstains alone, then we have added accountability and camaraderie.