Until the 1980 revision of its Testimony, total abstinence from alcohol was required of all members of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America. A primary reason for the denomination’s position was to give a corporate witness to society against the evils associated with the misuse of alcohol. More recently the abstinence requirement was limited to elders and deacons. following many years of de bate, the RPCNA’s highest court, the Synod, removed the abstinence requirement for elders and deacons in 1998. At issue was the Bible’s own position on alcohol use.

I voted consistently to remove the requirement, though I was not in full agreement with some of the reasons that were offered is support of changing the denomination’s position. The liberty of conscience view, for example, seemed often to be expressed in a narrowly individualistic manner, with seemingly little consideration for the broader social witness of the church. Also, I have witnessed among some Christians a palpable scorn toward others who believe that alcohol use, though permissible, may not necessarily be wise.

Over the years, I have wondered occasionally whether the RPCNA would have much sense of social witness concerning intemperance after the abstinence requirements were removed. In this article, I am “thinking aloud” three years after the removal of the requirement for elders and deacons. I don’t feel that I have things fully figured out, but I would like to encourage reflection and conversation about this issue in the denomination today. A goal is that we might crystallize a strong testimony that arises from our understanding of the teachings of the Word, and offer light to a world without moral foundations regarding alcohol or anything else.

An Intemperate Society

Life in North America in 2001 is characterized by intemperance—excess, waste and lack of self-control.

The West today is overall the most prosperous society that has ever existed. and yet in the United States we have had a negative savings rate for the past two years. We spend everything that we earn—and more! If we see something we want, we do not exercise self-control or save to buy it; we charge it, whether or not we can afford it. The last time there was a negative savings rate was during the Great Depression when there high unemployment; today there is no legitimate excuse.

Our society is also obsessed with sexual self-indulgence of various kinds. Thus, for instance, the largest single use of the Internet is for pornography.

We eat too much and are consequently overweight, and we have even spawned an industry to help us lose weight.

Yet Christians, who should be temper ate in all things (Gal. 5:22-23) are many times no more self-controlled than non- Christians. Professing Christians have almost as much trouble with indebted ness and with premarital/extramarital sex as unbelievers; and Christians also have plenty of problems with the obesity that comes from gluttony.

These are all reasons for looking at problems associated with intemperance.

Why Focus On Alcohol?

Why write an article about intemperance with respect to alcohol in particular? Is it really so big a problem, and are not other kinds of intemperance (e.g., gluttony) equally bad?

I will cite two reasons for focusing on a particular kind of intemperance. 1) It can he easy to remain relatively unmoved by general talk about excess, waste, and lack of self-control. It is when you look in some detail at a particular kind of intemperance that you see what the particular effects are. 2) While all forms of intemperance have social effects (since we are communal creatures), excessive indulgence in alcohol has al ways been recognized as having particularly broad social effects. Thus, for in stance, although gluttony is sinful, wasteful and detrimental, our society does not have to deal with 40,000 deaths each year from driving under the influence of ice cream (as I believe Rev. Sam Boyle once said).

Extent of the Problems

The abuse of alcohol is a very old social issue, but it’s not one that most Christians (apart from fundamentalists) have paid much attention to in the past generation or so. In the last 30 years we have been deluged with other pressing social issues (illegal drug abuse, abortion, organized gambling, the promotion of pornography and “alternate” lifestyles, etc.). Most of these issues present a clear “right versus wrong,” while the use of alcohol is not in itself sinful. The result is that concern among Christians about alcohol abuse in this country has taken a back seat.

Yet it is indeed a significant problem. I found myself amazed at the extent of it as I did research for this article. Official per capita consumption in the U.S. is presently the equivalent of 2.2 gallons of 100% alcohol per year,1 down slightly from a post-Prohibition peak in the early 1980s, but possibly beginning to rise once again. Estimates of the raw economic impact of alcohol abuse range from a rounded $100 billion per year2 to a more detailed $184 billion per year (see sidebar article).

Large as these figures are, they don’t begin to relate the human costs in terms of jobs lost, marriages on the rocks, or families bereaved because of alcohol related accidents. In aggregate, the social impact is astounding. All around us, in almost every community in the country, are the sad effects of intemperance—and much need and opportunity for the work of the gospel of Christ in its fullness.

The Phenomenon of Industrialized Production

The United States is largely a beer drinking country today, the largest beer market in the world;3 per capita consumption of distilled spirits and wine are also significant, hut lower.4 It has not always been this way. During the colonial era and the early 1800s the consumption of distilled spirits—much of it locally produced in small distilleries— was extremely high and consumption of beer was fairly low. Per capita consumption of alcohol in that era was actually about 50% higher at the peak than it has ever been at any time since then.

By 1830, the high consumption of spirits was causing such social problems that opposition arose and consumption began to decline.5 The early Temperance Movement aimed at change by persuasion rather than coercion,6 and it succeeded to a degree. By the Civil War, consumption of spirits had declined considerably and has never since recovered fully. This decline is perhaps the most lasting legacy of the Temperance Movement.

But as the consumption of spirits declined, the consumption of beer in creased. The rapid rise in beer consumption (it increased more then tenfold be tween 1850 and 1890’) can he attributed to two causes: 1) the desire of the population for beverages with lower concentrations of alcohol, and 2) the rise of the brewing industry with mass production and mass marketing. Both of these conditions continue to prevail in the U.S. today.

The industrialization of alcohol production has brought a distinct set of problems, and many of today’s alcohol related problems can be traced directly to it.

A high percentage of the alcohol consumed today is produced and marketed in the U.S. by a few large companies that do all they can to stimulate demand for their products. Such large-scale production and promotion were quite unknown to ancient societies, or even to America in the early 18005; most alcohol was produced and sold locally and with little or no marketing. Production and promotion of beer and spirits in the U.S. are now in the hands of a shrinking number of manufacturers9 that have much to gain by seeking to maximize per capita domestic consumption. The U.S. is home to the world’s largest brewer (Anheuser Busch), and the top five brewing companies account for 91 percent of domestic beer production. Though the volume of distilled spirits and wine are lower, the U.S. is home to two of the world’s largest spirits producers and the world’s largest wine-maker (Gallo)3.

Alcohol Consumption Among Young People

In the early 1980s, serious effects of alcohol abuse among the young began to become apparent, particularly among junior high anti high school students. Even some of the better students were drinking significantly, and there were many deaths from teenagers driving drunk. Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD)10 and Students Against Drunk Driving (SADD)11 are organizations formed in the early 198Os that worked hard in the schools to reduce alcohol abuse by teenagers. Junior high and high school principals cracked clown on drinking on school property and on students arriving drunk at school functions. The minimum drinking age was raised to 21 in all states, graduated drivers licensing laws were passed in many jurisdictions, and penalties for selling alcohol to minors were increased significantly in many states12. The results have been generally encouraging among those under 18. There is still a significant problem of drinking among high schoolers (three of my children saw plenty of it while in public high school during the 1990s), but the problem is somewhat less acute than it was 20 years ago.

It appears, however, that the controls put on high school students may only have been delaying alcohol abuse. College students today show a strong pattern of heavy drinking. A 1995 study reported that age 18 through 21 is actually the period of heaviest alcohol consumption for most drinkers in the United States. A 1991 survey showed that college students spend $5.5 billion annually on alcohol, much more than they spend on books. On a typical college campus. per capita student spending for alcohol ($116) far exceeds the per capita budget of the college library.14

The legal age for drinking is still 21 in all 50 states, yet underage drinking is the norm on many college campuses. In a 1999 survey, two out of three students under 21 reported drinking during the previous 30 days.15 Student web sites advertise the best party schools, a variety of drinking games, and even tips on how to seduce at drinking parties. Many colleges are surrounded by a ring of bars and liquor stores, and many of these do a roaring trade.

The drinking is often heavy. In recent years the phenomenon of binge drinking has become so extensive that college administrators have become alarmed. A well-documented survey of 140 colleges carried out in 1993, 1997, and 1999 by the Harvard School of Public Health16 showed that about 45 percent of college students engage in binge drinking and 20-25% described themselves as frequent binge drinkers. (Binge drinking is defined by the survey as having five or more drinks in a row, four for women; frequent bingers are those who hinged three or more times during the previous two weeks.) Binge drinking is heaviest in fraternities and sororities— where 80 percent of the residents describe themselves as binge drinkers—and also among student athletes. Each school year now brings news reports of students dying from acute alcohol poisoning, from drinking so much so rapidly that body functions shut down and death ensues.

In the Boston area, where I live, there have been several highly publicized student deaths from acute alcohol poisoning in recent years. College administrators have come under enormous pressure to crack down—even in liberal Massachusetts where any religious opposition to drinking is negligible.

Two-thirds of college presidents surveyed in the Harvard study now consider binge drinking a problem and are looking for ways to deal with it.17 Their concern goes far beyond the binge drinking itself. Frequent bingers are 17 times more likely to miss class, 10 times more likely to vandalize property, and 8 times more likely to get injured as a result of their drinking than non-binge drinkers. 18

The broader social effects of alcohol abuse are considerable. Most campus rapes occur after heavy drinking, and about 10 percent of female frequent binge drinkers reported having been raped. 19

The Impact of Mass-production and Mass-marketing

Each year, the beverage alcohol industry in the U.S. spends over one billion dollars on “measured media” advertising (television, radio, print and outdoor ads)20 and even more on other means of pro- motion (e.g., sponsorship of sporting events, distribution of brand name items, price promotions, etc.) 21 Well over half of measured media advertising is for beer.22

Christians should consider that these large producers are acutely aware of who drinks what, and how much (see their detailed annual trade publications25). Their businesses depend heavily on detailed and reasonably accurate sales data and sophisticated market research. Thus, for example, each of the major brewers is easily able to determine from sales data how much each of their particular beers is being consumed in the immediate vicinity of particular college campuses. They understand very well that they are facilitating and profiting from intemperance (the Harvard study reports that frequent binge drinkers consume 72 percent of all alcohol that college students drink24). But the bottom line for producers is to maximize profits, and show no willingness to consider whether they bear any responsibility for intemperance and the social effects that result from it.

Mass advertising never draws attention to the motives of the advertisers, but the goal is always the same: to maximize consumption in order to maximize profit. Mass advertising tends to be directed particularly towards young adults (think of the beautiful young people you see on TV commercials) whose life habits are not fully formed and who are expected by the advertisers to have a long life, for consumption purposes. Commercial advertising of alcoholic beverages seems to have paid off particularly well among the young.

How Should We Think About Alcohol Abuse Today?

Until recent years, I didn’t pay much attention to the problems of abuse of alcohol in a broader, social sense. I knew well that the problems were there, but my attention was mostly on other issues (such as abortion). When my children grew older and went to public high school, I started to pay more attention, and the extent of the problems began to impress me. I am not ready to go back to Prohibition, but I am more ready than I was to think about the responsibility of the church to hear a clear, corporate witness against these sins of a self-indulgent society (see RP Testimony 25:2 on the Mission of the Church which includes the obligation “to witness against all evil”).

Until I started receiving frequent mailings from the local high school principal about the drinking problems in his school and heard about them from my children, I didn’t realize how significant the problems there were. I am strongly in favor of private Christian education, both homeschooling and Christian schools; but I realize now that one of the possible side effects of private education is a partial detachment from what is going on in other parts of our society, so that we don’t understand the scope of social problems. The weight of the problems doesn’t really hit us.

While per capita consumption of alcohol is not as high as it was in the early 1800s, it is dangerously high among younger people in the IJ.S. today. And in contrast to the early l800s, today’s younger people have been growing up in a society with a very broad problem of intemperance of almost every kind. Todays youth have been taught in a variety of ways that it is fine to gratify their desires just as they please (“as long as you don’t hurt anyone,” of course). This makes it quite hard for them even to consider being temperate in respect to alcohol. In addition, today’s youth are bombarded by sophisticated programs of mass promotion of alcohol by big companies with deep pockets and a strong determination to maximize consumption. People who lived in pre-industrialized societies did not have to deal with that problem.

How should we think about drinking alcohol ourselves? Since Query #8 has been changed, there is no longer a requirement in the subordinate standards for anyone in the RPCNA to abstain totally. What is an appropriate posture? Is moderate use of alcohol the best policy? Doubtless there are a variety of opinions within our denomination.

The older I get (and the longer I work for a fairly large corporation), the more I recognize that profit is what drives companies of all kinds. Many of those who make the decisions will rationalize just about anything to maximize profits. Despite the “caring” image that alcohol-producing companies like to project, I am quite unconvinced about their good intentions. Their business making money, and lots of it.

I don’t think that drinking is wrong in itself, but, from a practical viewpoint, I find myself today in much the same place as before the query was changed: I abstain from alcohol. I feel I would be irresponsible to financially support an industry that knowingly and deliberately profits from alcohol abuse and seeks to maximize per capita consumption without apparent regard for significant social consequence. Also, in today’s situation of broad social intemperance and significant abuse of alcohol in particular, I want to make it easier for others (particularly younger people, including my children) to “Just say No” to alcohol. These are the same reasons given in our corporate Testimony (26:4-5). where abstinence from alcohol is strongly commended but not required.

I don’t expect that everyone will agree with these conclusions. But since there is no longer a requirement of abstinence for membership or office in the denomination, I would suggest that there be some discussion within the denomination about what it means for Christians to live faithfully in respect to the use of alcohol. I would like to encourage further discussion within the RPCNA about several particular issues:

1) How should the church respond to the exacerbation of the age-old problem of intemperance by industrialization (by modern profit-driven mass production and marketing of alcohol)?

2) What does it mean for Christ’s church to bear corporate (as distinguished from individual) witness about particular social practices (i.e., What does it mean that it is part of the mission of the Church “to witness’ against all evil”?)?

3) How should the church bear social witness to a society in which alcohol abuse is one of a large number of sinful and damaging practices (including illegal drug abuse, abortion, and pornography) that are tolerated and/or encouraged?

References

1.This is convened data: it means that the average American consumes a total of 2.2 gallons of alcohol itself yearly, not 2.2 gallons of beer (which contains about 3.5 to 6% alcohol) or of wine (which contains 12—15% alcohol) or of spirits (which contain 20-70% alcohol); from the web site of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), < http:// WWw.niaaa.nih.gov>.

2. (IS. News and World Report 09/08/97, ‘The Drinking Dilemma, http://www.usnews.com

3. World Health Organization Global Report on Alcohol, Region of the Americas, 162-167 (1999).

4. ibid.

5. Waguespack Seminars and Workshops, “Attitudes towards Alcohol in Early American His tory”, <http://www.homestead.com/ addhxwebske/alcohol8—ns4,html>,

6. ibid.

7. “U.S. Consumption of Beverage Alcohol,” <http://w’vw .history.ohio-state.edu/projects/pro hibition’consumption.htm>.

8. The Globe Magazine, “Alcohol ‘Bigger health threat than tobacco,” <http://tvww.ias.org.uk/ theglobe/2000issoe2’alcohol.htm>

9. Business Week, February 1, 2000, “Alcoholic Beverage Stocks Looking Good,” <http:// www.husinessweek.com/investor/content/jndiI idi0201a.html>.

10. < http://www.madd.org>

11. < http://www.saddonline.com>

12. Various sources in MADD and SADD web sites—see references 11 and 12

13. Cited in AlcoholAlert from NIAAA, < http:// alc’oholism.about.com/healtli/alcoholisrnJlihrary/ blnaa29.htm>,

14. Cited by MADD in “Research on Youth,” http://www.madd.org/stats/stat_youth.shtml.

15. Binge Thinking on America’s College Campuses. Henry Wechsler, PhD, Principal Investigator, Harvard School of Public Health, Cambridge. MA 2000, p. 6.

16. Reference 16. pp. 1-11

17. Reference 16, p. 2

18. Reference 16, p. 5

19. Reference 20, p. 6

20. Federal Trade Commission Reports, Alcohol Report, Appendix B, “Alcohol Advertising Expenditures,” .

21. ibid.

22. ibid.

23. As a starting point, see Beverage Markeling, 2000 Wine & Spirits in the U.S., 2000 Edition, September 2000, <http:// www. everagem corn / does / 2000WineUStoc,htrn>.

24. Reference l6, p. 2