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PROTESTANT PROHIBITION AGAINST DRINKING WINE

Certain Protestant denominations have accepted as an axiom that consumption of alcoholic beverages is a sin. 

The dogma as originally implied is economic in nature and favors the profits of companies that produce grape juice, specifically Welch's Grape Juice.   Here's the history of the company and the prohibition.

Prohibition against drinking wine either in the home or as part of communion:

   This argument suggests the people of G-d and even Christ Himself once drank grape juice as opposed to anything fermented. The origins of this line of thinking began circa 1869.

  Thomas Bramwell Welch (1825 – 1903) was a British physician dentist and strong leader (possibly bishop) of the Wesleyan Methodist Church.  He enjoyed initial success as a leader in the Temperance Movement and later expanded his influence as a Prohibition crusader.  Welch perfected a method of pasteurizing grape juice so as to stop the fermentation process. He called his concoction “Dr. Welch’s Unfermented Wine” and succeeded in persuading many congregations to take his juice instead of wine at communion.  His son Charles changed the name of the beverage and successfully promoted the sale of “Welch’s Grape Juice”.

  Welch promoted his Temperance/Prohibitionist agenda, as well as his fledgling company, among Protestant congregations by insisting that drinking any form of fermented drink was a sin.  Using his power and influence within the church, Welch began changing church doctrine, bolstering sales in the process.  It amounted to a financial scheme that increased sales revenue for his newly developed product and company.

Scholarly foundations

  Neither Hebrew nor Greek texts have a word for "Wine".  Instead they both use a descriptive terminology, "Fermented Drink", which we translate as "Wine" or "Strong Drink".  Fermented drink cannot refer to unfermented grape juice because the technology for making grape juice involves inhibiting the natural fermentation process not invented until the late 19th century by Thomas Bramwell Welch.

  Nothing wrong with wine (Deut 25:4; 1 Cor 9:7); fermentation is a natural process. (Many who prohibit drinking alcohol do not accept this reference.)

  Wine is actually beneficial (Judg 9:13; Ps 104:15; Prov 31:6; 1 Tim 5:23). This has been fascinatingly studied and proven by the medical community as well, that wine is in fact healthy and good for the individual to consume.

Wine as a symbol of blessing  (Gen 27:28:37;Prov 9:2; Isa 25:6; Mt 26:28,29).

Wine was also part of the sacrificial system (Num 15:15;Deut 14:26).

Wine was blessed at Cana (Jn 2:9,10).
While wine is not spoken against, drunkenness is in fact condemned with a difference being made biblically (Prov 23:20; Isa 5:11, 22; Lk 21:34; Rom 13:13; 1 Cor 5:11; 6:10; Gal 5:21; Eph 5:18; 1 Thess 5:8).

  There are special seasons when abstinence from this as well as other gratifications of a physical kind is a duty (cf. Lev 10:9; Judg 13:4, 14; Ezek 44:21; Dan 1:5, 8, 16; Rom 14:21; 1 Cor 10:28), and it is competent to any Christian, for the sake of his weaker brethren, or as a means of advancing his own spiritual life, or for the glory of God, to renounce his liberty in respect of drinks intelligent person will doubt this. But that total abstinence is imperatively required of everyone is neither asserted in Scripture nor was it taught by the example of Christ (Mt 11:19), and to enforce it upon Christian men as a term of communion is to impose on them a yoke of bondage which Christ has not sanctioned, and to supplant Christian liberty by bodily asceticism.

Additional Proofs

Human corruption vs. God’s faithfulness –

Human sin & corruption leads to shoddy quality, a form of cheat and theft;

“See how the faithful city has become a prostitute! She once was full of justice; righteousness used to dwell in her— but now murderers!   Your silver has become dross, your choice wine is diluted with water.   Your rulers are rebels, partners with thieves; they all love bribes and chase after gifts. They do not defend the cause of the fatherless; the widow’s case does not come before them.”
- Isaiah 1:21-23

God’s faithfulness restores standards & quality:

“and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside 10 and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”
- John 2:9

  St. Paul’s admonition to drink wine;

“Stop drinking only water, and use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses.”
- 1 Tim 5:23

I note the quotation from Isaiah that states activity in violation of God's law leads to human corruption and shoddy goods, specifically the dilution of wine by water.   Jesus' first documented miracle was to restore the quality of wine by turning water (the ingredient used for dilution) directly into wine.   This was not a simple change of flavor, but a complete change in chemical properties of the liquid served at the wedding.  The action was so complete that the founder of the feast received compliments for the good quality of the wine. 

History records the process of pasteurization, which inhibits natural fermentation of crushed grapes, was not perfected until the late 19th century.   This technology did not exist previously and reaffirms the fact that the Bible speaks of wine in its natural fermented state.   Jesus often drank wine as part of the seder ceremony and according to scripture actually made wine.  Prohibitions against wine by the church are not based upon scripture or Judeo-Christian tradition in any form. 

Dogmatic religious prohibitions directly profit companies that produce unfermented grape juice and enslave those who desire to follow Jesus' example.

and that's me, hollering from the choir loft...

Good post, Choir Loft.

As a protestant... Presbyterian... I have not problem with fermented grapes.

Although, my paternal Grandparents did.

That was, primarily as I believe, because my grandpap's dad was an alcoholic. ( And had such a horrible skeleton in his closet, that I laugh about, through my shame... though it did not affect me.... ( maybe mentally) ... but he was a bigamist.)(And most likly why grandpap would never drink, as he likely blamed the booze on the 2 wives.) (BTW... this was only discovered this past year when I was doing genealogy, it was never known in the family)

They, the grandfolks, were such teetotalers that my grandmother would not even use things like real vanilla in her cooking and baking.

And she also canned her own grape juice, every year.

When grandpap died, under Doctors orders, she had to take a tablespoon or so of scotch before bed to help her sleep. She did this for a few days only, and then carefully placed the remainder of the bottle in the corner of the china cabinet.

It would have been "wrong" to just pour something out...?

Anyway, 30 some odd years later, when grandma, herself, died..... in cleaning out her apartment, the bottle of scotch was still there. ( My aunt's husband quickly laid claims to it)

But the funniest grapefruit story I know was from anold boss of mine.

Seems he had , I think it was an aunt, who was also a true teetotaler.....

And, like grandma, she also canned grapejuice every year.

Every weekend through the summer the family would go visiting just to have her wonderful juice... and she was so complimented that they
like it so much.

But her grape juice always managed to ferment..... and her family was coming to get a little high.

She never knew it ever fermented, she thought that was the way grape juice was supposed to taste.