I don't like beer. I really don't like beer. I don't like the taste of it, I don't like the smell of it, I don't like its ever present advertising and, most of all, I loathe what the abuse of beer has regularly offered up to me...Beer is a barracks hallway full of vomit on a Saturday morning at Ft. Bragg. Beer is a room too scary or smelly to come home to at night. Beer is bloody noses and broken teeth on a woman who just keeps on putting up with it, over and over again. Beer is the idiot at that Vikings playoff game against the Cowboys years ago who hit a referee in the head with a beer bottle and utterly destroyed our moral high ground after the ref's screwed up a pass interference call. Beer is my dad's old coworker Larry leaving his wife to deal with a leukemic son alone. Beer is a Moose Lake convict whose life first began to go off track at a beer kegger as a young man. Beer is a drunk driver and dead boys in Montevideo who will never, ever gloriously scream Maynard Ferguson tunes on the trumpet again. Beer is a bleary-eyed, filthy man repeatedly coming to the church for "bus fare." Beer is many, many, many a ruined life. I hate beer. I really hate beer. My reaction to beer and, increasingly, any alcohol consumption whatsoever, is almost visceral.
I know I can't make much of a biblical case for these reactions. I know it is not beer, but its abuse that colors my views. I know the Bible does not teetotal - quite the contrary. I know some studies say a little beer each day might actually be good for you, although to hear Mansfield quoting studies from the University of Wisconsin on this issue does cause me a cynical chuckle! But aside from some very legitimate and important "stumbling block" considerations, like almost everything used in moderation, beer really shouldn't be an issue for believers. I know these things. I've taught these things to others. I believe these things to be true.
But I just don't feel these things. Not even a little bit. I've lived a very different beer experience. And since now it seems my "dry" perspectives on beer and alcohol are very distinctly uncool and out of fashion even in the church, I decided to read and review Stephen Mansfield's book about the Guinness family in Ireland - a biography of the beer that changed the world.
On the one hand, the book is fascinating. The history is very important. It is important for guys like me to be reminded beer was originally considered something of a health drink. With water wildly impure and other forms of alcohol abuse very destructively out of control, beer was a healthy choice encouraged and enjoyed by Christians. And the Guinness people certainly made good beer and used much of their resulting income well. The virtuous stories of this fascinating family make for very interesting reading. Their social responsibility, careful stewardship and profound faith is truly a model for all of us to consider. I suspect many of the virtuous attitudes modeled in the book may well be one of the reasons God allowed this family to rise to the summit of a very competitive industry.
But as a guy with serious beer biases, as a guy repeatedly asked to clean up alcohol damage of one sort or another, I wish there would have been at least grudging admission, somewhere in the book, that the abuse of beer has been a significant problem all over the world. I wish there would have been some sort of responsible consideration of the Apostle Paul's Romans 14:21 admonition, "It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall."(NIV) As Christians, we are constantly in the business of graciously making these "stumbling block" adjustments in our lives for the good of others around us - why in the world should beer now be an exception? Yet Mansfield is so very intent on his beer agenda, these things are never once thoughtfully discussed. I found that very disappointing - a disturbing mark on an otherwise fascinating and worthwhile story.
This book is a good read for beer bigots like me who need to be reminded not to judge unfairly and ungraciously. But I would never, ever recommend it for anyone with even the slightest family history of alcohol abuse. This book tosses stumbling block concerns completely to the wind and opens wide the doors to destruction. Why give such blatant promotion to something so very many people have such a terribly difficult time handling responsibly? I will not.
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