Friday, August 3, 2007

Sheriffs, fences and booze

A few days ago, a Christian friend of mine stopped me and in whispered tones informed me that she had seen me going into a liquor store.

"Okay," I replied. "And?"

"Well, you know that we're not supposed to drink," she said. "It's against the Bible. I'm concerned about your faith, if you're drinking, and God says we should rebuke our fellow Christians in love."

I looked at her oddly for a moment. She and I clearly had very different positions on this matter, and I didn't want a fight with someone who genuinely thought she was doing me a favor. "I'll pray about it," I finally said, and that was the end of it.

Well, in subsequent days, I've thought a bit about this one. The leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention years ago adopted an official stance of total abstinence from alcohol. Part of the contract that students at Southern Baptist Seminaries sign forbids them to drink, and if they're caught with alcohol in their proximity, they can be expelled from the Seminary. Likewise, state Convention staff are forbidden to drink on pain of potentially losing their jobs. Many states in the Bible belt have created blue laws to prevent people from buying alcohol at all on Saturday nights or Sundays, so that the good Christians will not be tempted.

The interesting thing about this hullabaloo is that the Bible never forbids drinking. It says not to drink in excess, but 'in excess' is a far cry from 'not at all'. We know that Jesus and the disciples drank wine with every meal. Everyone did at the time, because often the water was unsafe. So alcohol itself can't be inherently sinful. Why the huge emphasis on abstinence, then?

The answer, strangely enough, can be found in the traditions of the Jewish faith. Judaism, unlike Christianity, tends to take the laws of the Old Testament very seriously indeed, particularly the commandment to keep God's commandments. In order to help Jews do this, the councils that interpret Torah law have, over the centuries, established other laws. These supplementary laws (a good example is 'don't complete a circuit on the Sabbath') are designed to be a 'fence' around the original Torah laws. They are in fact more strict than the Torah laws, because Torah scholars figured that they were a good way to keep people from inadvertently breaking one of God's precious commandments.

Christians, on the other hand, tend to play fast and loose with God's laws. We try and stick to the Ten Commandments, but we ignore large chunks of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers wholesale. Protestantism in particular has never developed an official 'fence' position, but that's what we see happening when Christians believe that all alcohol is forbidden. It's an unofficial 'fence' around a set of teachings that for some reason someone found important. The Convention's draconian policies place Convention leadership in the position of sheriff, riding the fences and looking for lawbreakers.

The problem with fences is twofold: a) how do we know that we're fencing off the right doctrines, and b) how do we deal with the matter of sheriffs? The first prong of this line of thinking leads to some funny conclusions. We have total abstinence from alcohol to fence the doctrine of 'drink in moderation', forbidden use of birth control to fence the doctrine 'be fruitful and multiply', and in many churches, a discouraging attitude towards dancing to fence the doctrine of mental purity. Why are these important doctrines, though? When asked what was the greatest commandment, Jesus replied,

"'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commands." [Matt22:37-40]

The truth is, we Protestants don't really have fences for the two greatest commandments. We often spout them about, but rarely think enough about what they mean in practice to establish effective fences to make sure that we're loving properly. Christians often talk about the power of love unbound, but in this case I think that we need to bind it, to build our fences around God's commands and make sure that we're loving always. Christ places these two commands over all the Law and Prophets, which means above little issues like alcohol or birth control. It's long past time the Christian church had a serious conversation about love, and about the practical ways that we can make sure we're always loving as we have been commanded.

The second prong of my thoughts about fences concerns enforcement: should we be sheriffs for the fences that we build? Often, I think that's not our responsibility. The Bible tells us to support each other in faith, but I'm not yet convinced that that necessarily means policing the sort of fences that the Southern Baptist Convention has built. Rather, I think that supporting someone in faith means encouraging them to put effort into their attempt to walk with God. It means engaging them more deeply in theology, asking the difficult questions about God and faith, then sitting and listening while they work out their answers. It means loving, unconditionally. Things like playing sheriff for minor fences pale in comparison to those duties, and Christians, myself certainly included, don't pay nearly enough attention to the big duties that God gives us as it is.

In short, I think that right now Christianity needs fewer sheriffs, and more scholars. We need to refocus onto what God says is crucial, and trust that the other things will fall in line when the big priorities are right. We need to be less concerned over the appearances of someone's faith, and more concerned over their understanding. I was walking into the liquor store to buy wine for a recipe of coq au vin, but my neighbor was more concerned with the appearance of violating a non-existent command than with my actual intent for my actions. My neighbor has never asked me about issues of faith, like what I think about whether love obligates us to protect someone. The need for change goes both ways, though. I judged her as shallow for her concern about my actions, but I, in turn, have never asked her about doctrine, like what she thinks about Paul's writings on women. Maybe it's time for both of us to become less judgmental sheriffs, and better Christians.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You may be right about the scholar part. Me, as lay person, with a pretty good grounding in a sort of liberal view of Christianity, I've often thought that people should be urged to follow those sayings of Jesus (and Paul) which apply to everyone - rather than only some. So I think of "love your enemy" as a far more important thing to aim for in life. It' something that applies to all of us - without exception. And it's something that, to my mind, has never really been emphasized to the degree that Jesus clearly emphasized it.