In “Contemporary Christianity’s” ever more desperate attempts to be culturally relevant and accepted, many of their popular leaders have embraced the practice of encouraging imbibing. Before Mars Hill Church fell apart a couple of years ago, their lead pastor decided to include an open bar in their service on Superbowl Sunday. As always, chasing cultural relevance just leaves the chasers irrelevant, while they continually find themselves behind the curve of change.
Even while they are now taking up the booze banner, the world is finally admitting the incalculable damage ruin and destruction for which alcohol has been the source. Just recently CNN did a research piece (CNN August 24, 2018) with these summary paragraphs:
“If you’re one of the third of all humankind who drinks alcohol, take note: There’s no amount of liquor, wine or beer that is safe for your overall health, according to a new analysis of 2016 global alcohol consumption and disease risk.
Alcohol was the leading risk factor for disease and premature death in men and women between the ages of 15 and 49 worldwide in 2016, accounting for nearly one in 10 deaths, according to the study, published Thursday in the journal The Lancet.
For all ages, alcohol was associated with 2.8 million deaths that year.
Those deaths include alcohol-related cancer and cardiovascular diseases, infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, intentional injury such as violence and self-harm, and traffic accidents and other unintentional injuries such as drowning and fires.”
Big Alcohol has preached for years the lie that some boozing is a good thing, but the long-term study cited by the CNN report says otherwise: “The most surprising finding was that even small amounts of alcohol use contribute to health loss globally,” said senior study author Emmanuela Gakidou, a professor at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. “We’re used to hearing that a drink or two a day is fine. But the evidence is the evidence.”
Last week on Tuesday we again remembered the 3000 people killed in the 9/11/01 Islamic terrorist attacks. In 2016 alone there were 90,015 Americans whose deaths were directly attributed to alcohol consumption. Alcohol killed 30 times more than the terrorists were able to. The booze aisle is no place for the Christian to be.