By now you know that I’m teaching a Sunday School class on Mere Christianity by CS Lewis. Today we got into Book 3 – Christian Behavior. It’s always fun when you get to talk about sex and alcohol in Sunday School.
And by “fun,” I mean totally awkward.
As I was leaving church today, I thought more about this issue of temperance. I talked about it before in my post Christianity and My Vodka Tonic and today I started thinking about how screwed up our society has become.
Our world today is full of people who do things to the extreme or don’t do them at all. Just look at the college kids right here at the University of South Carolina. They have do-gooders telling them not to drink at all. And they have frat brothers forcing liquor down their throats through funnels.
What they don’t have is someone saying “dude, drink three or four beers, chill and have some good conversation.”
People just expect you to fall in one of the two extremes. No one expects you to be in the middle.
The sad thing is that there are people out there that do live a temperate life style with regards to alcohol. You may even be one of them.
However, they typically are the ones that aren’t vocal about it. Alcohol to them isn’t something to be feared or worshipped. They just enjoy it with their friends, enjoying its properties while holding it with a healthy respect.
Drinking less than I do or drinking more than I would be able to handle could also be forms of temperance. This really is a personal issue and deciding for yourself what would be best.
Even not drinking at all can be a form of temperance if you are someone who knows that they cannot handle even the smallest bit of alcohol.
The problem comes when people start judging others for not doing exactly as they are doing. Therefore the teetotalers as well as the binge drinkers who look down on you are both in the wrong.
Be honest with yourself. You know what you can and cannot handle. Don’t let anyone else force you to either extreme.
Comments
Powered by Facebook Comments