Proof God Loves Us

It is interesting to note how perspectives can change over time.  Consider the often forgotten facts regarding beverage alcohol in American and Church history.  Benjamin Franklin, one of America’s founding fathers, supposedly quipped, “Beer is proof God loves us, and wants us to be happy.”  Franklin was a deist, but plenty of this nation’s other founding fathers (many of them devout Christians) seemed to agree.  Every individual who affixed his signature to the Declaration of Independence enjoyed beverage alcohol.  John Hancock, whose large signature is found upon that document, was a beverage alcohol salesman, and Patrick Henry was a bartender.  George Washington was a home brewer, and the Colonial Army supplied troops with daily rations of rum or whiskey.  The manufacturing of rum, in fact, was Colonial New England’s largest and most profitable industry.

Today it is known that on average, moderate drinkers live longer than teetotalers.  Apparently some Colonists were aware of this fact, since teetotalers were required to pay at least one company life insurance rates which were ten percent higher than that of drinkers.  Colonial church-goers were usually never far from the pub, since taverns were generally required to be located near church buildings or meeting houses.  Religious services were often held in the major taverns of Colonial towns.  The Rev. Valentine Wightman, the founding pastor of the First Baptist Church of New York, initially held services in the loft of Nicholas Eyres’ brewery in the early 1700s.  Later that century, Baptist minister Elijah Craig invented bourbon whiskey in Kentucky.  The connection between pubs and religious houses didn’t begin in America.  Bavarian monks were the first to brew lagers.  They were the ones who discovered the virtues of hops, which acted as both a preservative and flavor for beer.  Monasteries eventually opened pubs and promoted their beers to the public.

The tradition of enjoying alcoholic beverages in America began with the Puritans, who loaded more beer than potable water onto the Mayflower prior to sailing for the New World.  After they arrived and celebrated Thanksgiving, they had no cranberry sauce or pumpkin pie, but did have plenty of beer, brandy, gin, and wine for the festivities.  These early settlers included more than 100 graduates of Oxford and Cambridge.  Desiring to retain highly educated ministers, the Puritans established Harvard just a few years after their arrival.  One of the first construction projects on the new campus was a brewery.  They didn’t countenance drunkenness, however, which was forbidden and punished.

The Puritans view of alcoholic beverages was in line with that of the early Church, which declared alcohol as an inherently good gift of God to be used and enjoyed.  During the late second century, several heretical sects rejected the consumption of alcoholic beverages and called for total abstinence.  By the end of the late fourth and early fifth centuries, the Church stated that individuals might rightly choose to abstain from alcohol consumption, but advocated moderate consumption.  The excessive and abusive use of alcohol was continually rejected as sinful, but the despising of God’s gift was deemed heretical.  It certainly makes one ponder the words of the Apostle Paul, who declared that our hopes are to be set “on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.”  (1 Timothy 6:17)