Alcohol Use and the SBC

There was a resolution passed this week concerning alcohol consumption and SBC leadership.

"When the back-and-forth on alcohol finally ended, the messengers passed with about a four-fifths majority a resolution not only opposing the manufacture and consumption of alcohol but urging the exclusion of Southern Baptists who drink from election to the convention’s boards, committees and entities. Like other resolutions, it is not binding on SBC churches and entities."

Those who were in favor of the resolution were Jim Richards, executive director of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention and a messenger from First Baptist Church of Fort Worth, Texas, who introduced the bill. He stated, "While there may be liberty, we cannot violate [the admonition in 1 Corinthians 8 that] says our liberty can become a stumbling block. … [T]he use of alcohol as a beverage can and does impede our testimony for the Lord Jesus Christ,” Richards said in support of his amendment. “[O]ur leaders should take the high road in our walk with the Lord Jesus.”

Also in defense of the resolution was committee member Dwayne Mercer, pastor of First Baptist Church in Oviedo, Fla. He said he appreciates “the fact that people become alcoholics because they drink too much alcohol, my parents always taught me, ‘If you don’t take the first drink, you don’t have to worry about taking the last.’”

In oppostion of the bill was Tom Ascol, pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Fla., and executive director of Founders Ministries, a Southern Baptist organization that advocates reformed theology, referred to an New Testament account of Jesus at a wedding as his rationale.
“Christ turned water into wine,” Ascol said.

Benjamin Cole, pastor of Parkview Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, said he does not advocate the drinking of alcohol but he feared the convention was in danger of “misstepping” if it adopted “a position that is contrary to what the Bible teaches in the flexibility of the scriptural admonitions as they relate to the consumption of alcoholic beverages.”

Cole’s father died at the age of 39 from a liver disease brought on by alcoholism.

“My father did not die because he drank alcohol; my father died because he drank alcohol in excess,” said Cole, who said as a 13-year-old he cared for his father during the last six months of his life.
Jeff Young, pastor of Corinth Baptist Church in Ravenna, Texas, said the older members of the SBC had won the battle to proclaim the Bible is “authoritative and sufficient, but when we pass extra-biblical resolutions such as this, we pull the rug out from underneath that teaching.”

I'd be interested in hearing what people think about this.