October 7, 2014October 29, 2019 Adam

Evangelist Andrew Green and Christian Alcohol

Blog, Integrity

Can Christians drink alcohol? This question has at least one answer for every different kind of alcohol there is.

One of my Facebook friends shared this Christian-esk video from Evangelist Andrew Green the other day where he talked a lot about Christians and alcohol. This is the video posted by Evangelist Andrew Green. Here’s another link that looks more obvious. 

There is  a problem with his post, though: He’s completely and utterly wrong.

Let me rephrase: He has a few valid points with some stuff, but he has taken most of what he believes out of biblical context and to extremes that aren’t actually anywhere in the bible.

A big problem with videos like this is that they feel good emotionally, but biblically, practically, and logically are incoherent. Another problem is that most good Christian people just lack the ability to think critically or question things and just go with the flow of what someone with perceived authority says.

People are like sheep. There, I said it. Actually, I think Jesus might have also said that a few times.

Anyway, too many people fall into the trap of believing what every pastor says just because their title involves the word pastor/reverend/father/minister. Yes, theoretically, that should be fine and they should all know what they’re talking about. However, a lot of them don’t.

Take Andy here as an example: He has twisted and confused several things about Jesus, Christianity, and alcohol into one giant mess that a lot of good Christians believe simply because it has been church tradition in the U.S. for a very long time and no one has thought to question it or to look into the actual biblical context of what is being quasi-quoted.

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With that being said, who’s ready to jump down the controversial rabbit hole and into Pandora’s Box, which is most likely an alcohol store?

First, good for you, Andy, you bought liquor at a gas station. If it’s as bad as you’re getting ready to say it is, hopefully you didn’t “ruin your witness” to the cashier or something terribly detrimental like that.

Second, really, Andy? You’re taking the “King” brand and implying that it’s actually trying to dethrone Jesus because “there’s only one King, and his name is Jesus Christ”? A) It’s a brand name. B) When are you going to start saying the same thing about Burger King, King Kong, The Lion King, Martin Luther King, MLK Jr., Stephen King, or King David? Are they all trying to dethrone the Jesus, too?

Third, if Jesus is so easily threatened by a beverage having the word “king” in the title, what does that imply about his authority, power, or divinity if it’s so easily threatened by a bottom-shelf alcoholic beverage brand name?

Moving on…

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 “There is no reason a Christian, a believer in God, would want to sit down and drink this.”

Andy, are you implying that if a Christian would drink alcohol that they’re not really Christians? 1) You’re judging, which is okay, but 2) you’re judging wrongly. This blog talks about the judging stuff.

Long story short, judging the actions of others is totally okay, as long as it’s done properly and biblically. However, it is not your or my place to judge the eternal post-death destination of someone. Yes, we can judge their actions, words, behaviors, etc., and it’s encouraged, but to say if someone is a Christian or not, which in your context ultimately means saying where they’ll end up eternally, isn’t our judgment to make.

The Holy Spirit “shutting fire up in your bones” thing is out of context. He’s referring to Jeremiah 20:9, by the way.

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 “There’s no amount of alcohol…that can give you the peace that our God gives us.”

Well, Andy, you have a point there. But you forgot to mention that there is also no amount of chicken fries, milkshakes, video games, books, sporting activities, or even mid-90’s Chuck Norris movies that can give us God’s peace like that either. You’re implying that alcohol is the only thing that can’t provide it or “stir us up” like the Holy Spirit/God.

Side question: Have you ever been buzzed by the alcohols? If you were to get buzzed, it could result in being stirred up and possibly impaired to the point that you think it’s the Holy Spirit moving inside you.

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You pointed out the snake logo and mentioned that first thing it reminded you of was Satan when he entered the Garden of Eden. Interesting first thought from it, but okay.

Personally, the first thing I thought of was the Crocodile Hunter because he did this episode on cobra snakes. My second thought was the medical emblem with the snake around the pole. There’s this whole “healing, helping sick people, curing mental and physical diseases” thing, which I’m pretty sure is in the bible. And I’m also pretty sure Jesus did some of that.

Also, Satan isn’t around every corner or behind everything. He’s not everywhere at the same time (omnipresent); he’s just a tainted and fallen angel and is not equal to Jesus in any way whatsoever. It’s a common misconception that Satan is omnipresent and Jesus’s equal opposite, but he’s not.

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“He talked her into taking the bite of an apple. Any other day or time and any other apple would’ve been okay. But that day it cost them the garden.”

Andy, please, tell me you’re kidding. The bible doesn’t say what kind of fruit she ate. We don’t know if it was or was not an apple. It just says “fruit.” Seriously, broski, that’s in every Pastoring 101 class. Didn’t they teach you that in Pastor School? Did you go to Pastor School? Seriously. Are you like, certified and ordained and official and stuff?

The second sentence there, that “any other day or time and any other apply would’ve been okay” part. No, any other day or time or “apple” wouldn’t have been okay. God said for them to not eat it, period. Ever. At all. It wasn’t one specific fruit on that tree; it was all of it on that tree. They were instructed to leave it alone completely, which sounds synonymous with not eat any fruit from it at all.

There wasn’t anything special about that day. It was an “all the time” thing. As far as we can tell, it would’ve cost them the garden if they did it 2 days later, 3 months later, or 4 years later. There was nothing special about that particular day; the end result was always going to be the same, regardless of when.

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 “Today, the sickness and disease that we’re experiencing here is all because of that snake; Satan, the liar, the deceiver. This is deception in a bottle.”

Andy, dear, let’s back the John Deere tractor up a little bit here. Yes, the sickness and disease and deterioration of life as we know it now ultimately stems from that Garden-Fruit Incident. And yes, Satan did have a substantial role to play, but Adam and Eve made a conscious choice to disobey God and eat the Mystery Fruit. Satan didn’t force them to; they chose to. So, technically, it’s their fault because they made the choice. They could’ve said no, but they didn’t.

Why didn’t God just swoop in and save the day? Well, if he had, that would’ve taken out the “free will” part of humanity. We’re free to make our own choices and if God would intervene whenever we get ready to make a horrible decision and force a different outcome, that would rob us of our free will. God doesn’t like robots; he wants us to love him willingly and whatnot.

That last sentence, “This is deception in a bottle.” How did you connect the Garden-Fruit Incident back to alcohol being deceptive? I understand that the commercials have happy images of happy people with booze in their hands and stuff, but there are just as many other ones showing traumatic “after” pictures and videos of car crashes caused by alcohol. Is it really deceptive since media is regularly seen displaying how bad alcohol can be if it’s abused?

Really, I would say the commercials stress moderation. Actually, they do. It’s in the “drink responsibly” clause at the end of the commercial.

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Andy, you said you’ve seen alcohol destroy families, cost children their lives, destroy marriages, tear people apart, and that “most of them have not came back.”

Yes, alcohol can do that if it’s abused and out of control. But what about strokes and congestive heart failure and coronary artery disease? Those can all happen due to people living with unhealthy lifestyles (chicken fries from Burger King every day for 12 years). Those 3 medical issues destroy lives. Have you talked to a person who has had a bad stroke? Their life is über messed up afterward, and there isn’t usually much recovery from it if it was severe. It’s the same with people who have had massive heart attacks to the point where their daily activity is severely altered.

Is that from them “sinning” from eating unhealthily for years? Would that be “deception in a Burger King bag?”

Being in the medical field myself, I can say that I’ve seen plenty of alcohol-related problems. I have seen the alcohol-induced car wrecks, perpetual homelessness provoked by alcohol, poor life choices by drunk college kids, etc. But I have also had the experiences with the diabetic 50-year-old whose blood sugar dropped and resulted in them crashing into another vehicle and causing detrimental injuries, i.e. destroying lives. The number of people I’ve seen with unhealthy lifestyles due to poor dieting and exercising that have destroyed families and whatnot is much higher than the alcohol ones.

I think “moderation” is a word you may want to become more accustomed to.

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I also think you’re taking this “alcohol is sin in a bottle” thing to an extreme. Not everyone who drinks is an alcoholic and will destroy their life and burn everyone around them with the fire of hell. Some people just like the taste of a 30-year-old scotch, similar to the way some people like a good cup of coffee.

Fun fact: The whole “alcohol is sinful” thing didn’t come around until after the prohibition, and the prohibition was partially brought on by women who were tired of their husbands being plastered. It is also mainly localized to the United States. If you go to England, Christians drinking alcohol after church is incredibly common.

There is not much biblical support to casual drinking being sinful. In the New Testament it stresses moderation and it hits the moderation part very heavily with leaders in the church (check out 1 Timothy 3).

Oh, and another fun fact: C.S. Lewis, yes, the guy who wrote Narnia, Mere Christianity, The Four Loves, ‘Till We Have Faces, and a lot more, was one of the most influential people in all of Christian History and drank alcohol regularly. And smoked. And he even mentions it in his books. One of his books he talks about how he came to America and was shocked and perplexed about how anti-alcohol Christian Americans were.

Oh, Andy, at the end of the video where you dramatically shoot the bottle of not-sinful-in-and-of-itself-within-moderation alcohol? It didn’t look like you had any ear protection.