Two
Prohibition Movements
Christians are divided over
how much we should try to make sin illegal. We believe some sins can’t be
legislated and forced on unbelievers but other sins should be illegal. Many
Christian Americans think sins like adultery, divorce
or worshipping idols should not be illegal even though they may be sin. But we think other sins like murder, theft, rape, or sexual abuse
of children should be illegal for everyone—both Christians and unbelievers
alike. The tension comes for us
in deciding which sins we should restrict ourselves from doing and which ones
we will try to make unbelievers go to jail for.
Recently American Christians have tried to prohibit the sin of abortion
for everyone, though we have not had much success yet. But Christian were
more successful in an earlier movement: the movement to prohibit sale of
alcohol.
Banning the evil of alcohol
By the 1840’s
Protestants—especially Methodists but also including Baptists and
Quakers—increasingly saw the evils of alcohol. They were not satisfied with
being tee-totalers themselves—they believed nobody
should drink alcohol—not even unbelievers. They began a movement to prohibit
all alcohol sales. The movement gained momentum quickly—far more momentum than
the recent anti-abortion movement. Christians became one-issue-voters. They
refused to vote for a “wet” candidate or party—expecting any “real Christian”
to vote for “dry” candidates. They condemned any politician who supported the
right of Americans to choose…to drink. By 1869 they even organized a
“Prohibition Party” to field prohibition candidates for election. In 1873 the
Women’s Christian Temperance Union exploded into existence working for the
banishment of all sales of alcoholic beverages. Christians marched in
demonstrations, they handed out millions of leaflets, held rallies, and even
entered bars and smashed barrels of beer as a protest They were so effective
that on December
18, 1917 got the U.S. House of
Representatives to pass the 18th amendment to the U S Constitution which
banned all manufacture, sale, or
transportation of intoxicating liquors in the USA. The Christian movement
then followed up with state-by-state political action until by 1919 they had
persuaded thirty-six states to ratify the amendment. Prohibition was national law
when it went into effect one year after ratification (January 17, 1920). The
Christians had won the day—making national law their Christian convictions.
Pushing evil underground
While the Christian’s
victory was sweet it was not complete. Speakeasy clubs popped up across the
nation where drinkers could still get their alcohol—at least 30,000 of them in
New York alone. With legitimate beer companies unable to sell alcohol, mobsters
and moonshiners entered the business and developed
“back alley” operations to provide alcohol to those who wanted it. Much like
today’s illegal traffic in Marijuana, the product was still available but the
public sale of it was illegal and the law disapproved it altogether, so
Christians claimed there were at least fewer drunks.
One step forward, two steps back
For the next 13 years the
Christian position was the law of the land. But eventually the “pro-choice”
position (people should be able to choose for themselves if they drink) gained
counter-momentum. Taking a page from the
Christian temperance movement the counter-movement got up their own amendment
and the 21st amendment was ratified by December 5th, 1933
repealing the earlier Christian prohibition amendment. Thirteen years of
prohibition ended and in celebration Anheuser Busch promptly hooked up a team
of Clydesdales and delivered kegs of beer to the White House.
The methodist’s fall-back
position.
Having failed to make their
own convictions as national law the Christians—especially the Methodists—now
focused on their own members. No longer could they use national law to tell
their members not to drink so they used their own law—church law. “Methodists
don’t drink—not a single drop.” They admitted that unbelievers drank and
Catholics and Episcopalians drank, but in this
denomination—Methodists—we don’t drink. Robbed of their former argument
(“Christians keep the law”) they now used the integrity of the members who had
promised to be tee-totalers to persuade their own
members toward “total abstinence.”
The Methodist’s double fall-back position.
But over time some Methodist
members started sipping a bit of wine anyway in spite of their promise. The
prohibitionist movement turned inward—no longer working for prohibition in the
nation, but now working to keep prohibition for their own church members. An
increasing number of Methodists simply ignored the ban so eventually the focus
of tee-totaling was revised to ensure the
clergy didn’t drink—even if the laity did. Today there are still a host of
Methodists who don’t drink and a vast number of Methodist ministers maintain
total abstinence to this day (they still promise it) but the Methodists have
moved on to other concerns and for most alcohol isn’t a major issue on their
radar.
----------------------
However, this column really
isn’t about alcohol—it is about abortion…
or maybe marijuana.
So
what do you think?
During the
first few weeks, click here to comment or
read comments
Keith
Drury February 23, 2010