My interest in the biblical view of alcohol began while I was visiting an Independent Fundamental Baptist church. The pastor gave me a cassette tape recording of a sermon by Dr. Gary Reimers of Bob Jones University and said that Dr. Reimers “really did his homework.” Unfortunately, his home work seemed to consist of skimming two middle school level encyclopedia articles on the word “wine.” He took one quote from each, out of context, and at face value. Beyond that, the articles contradicted most of his claims about both ancient and modern wine making and consumption. This poor level of scholarship from a PhD fascinated me, so I studied further.
At first, my goal was to hold fundamentalists to their claim that “the Bible is the sole authority on matters of faith and practice”, but I soon found this claim only applies when their traditions are consistent with the Bible, so I only succeeded in getting some fundamentalists very angry, primarily at http://SharperIron.org.
I originally created this blog (at http://www.blogger.com) in response to an exchange I had with another blogger, Dr. Kevin T. Bauder ((At the time President of Central Baptist Theological Seminary)). On his blog ((For unlreated reasons, Dr. Bauder’s blog no longer exists.)), Dr. Bauder had criticized an unnamed someone (possibly me) for criticizing “The Two Wine Theory” on an unnamed forum site (possibly SharperIron). Dr. Bauder did not understand what was being criticized under the title “The Two Wine Theory.” Nor did he adequately research the scripture he cited before declaring that he had “unshakable proof.” We had a brief enchange on his blog, and ultimately I created my own blog to post my final response here, here, and here.
Too many Christians tolerate, and even encourage, really bad reasoning (or in the case of The Odyssey, sloppy research), especially when it appears to support their traditions of “touch not, taste not, handle not.” ((Colossians 2:20-23))
While this blog began as a critique of faulty prohibitionist reasoning, it will likely contain my thoughts on a variety of subjects.
From time to time I may edit any entry on this site to improve clarity, correct spelling, or for any other reason.