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At one point in my faith crisis, I started drinking coffee for a few weeks when I was getting very little sleep and needed to perform well at work. DW at the time didn’t know, but I told her. Initially she felt strange about it, and asked me to stop, which I was more than happy to respect her wishes. She’s now ok with me drinking coffee even though I haven’t and have no plans to do so in the near future. We are TR holders and I see that as a pretty clear violation of the WoW, even though I feel worthier than I ever have to enter the temple since I am more at peace with myself. I figure since I plan on going back to the temple at some point, better to just “repent” of it and not be clandestine about drinking a cuppa in the morning. So the reason I’m posting this in the History/Doctrine forum:
I know that the WoW was not a commandment until the 1920s, that “hot drinks” didn’t necessarily mean coffee/tea until Brigham Young discouraged them because they were imports to the Mormon economy, and that many of the early prophets didn’t even really follow the WoW.
Is there anything important I’m missing? Are coffee and tea really so bad? It seems that the abstaining from them is just part of the Mormon identity now.
We’ve talked about this in a number of other threads, but my short answer is: Yes, coffee is bad in multiple ways – and for some people it is more addicting than tobacco and alcohol. I know quite a few people who drink coffee regularly who literally can’t quit without getting terrible headaches – nearly migraines. I don’t think there’s a benefit to coffee that can’t be obtained from something else.
Tea? Some is bad for us; some isn’t – and there are plenty of teas that are allowed by the Church in various places in the world.
Ultimately, my main concern with using the things that are prohibited in the current Word of Wisdom policy is what I already said about coffee – that I don’t know of a single benefit that can’t be gained from something else, and there are definite risks for many people. That rarely gets mentioned and discussed, but it’s important to me. (Wine is the best example, imo. Who cares if a glass a night is fine for some people and provides some benefits? Those same benefits can be obtained from other things – that generally are cheaper, so why insist on drinking wine?)
My biggest concern about those who follow the current restrictions is that they generally do so to the exclusion of the other counsel that is not part of the prohibitions. I’ve struggled with weight issues for the past 20 years, but I’ve lost 30 pounds in the last three months largely by paying attention to the non-prohibition parts of the Word of Wisdom and simply eating less. We should be much, much healthier as a people – and part of that is our refusal to take the overall Word of Wisdom seriously enough, imo.
I’m NOT saying the Word of Wisdom is an eternal law or that people who don’t follow it religiously are sinning when they don’t believe in it – but I think the underlying principles stated in it actually are eternal in nature: taking care of ourselves to the best of our understanding and avoiding addiction peddlers who care nothing about us but just want our money. I believe those are really important things.
scooter wrote:….Are coffee and tea really so bad? …
No.
the coffee and tea restriction has nothing to do with health. there are no significant health problems with coffee and tea above the significant health risks of overeating. scalding hot drinks of any kind are unhealthy however. coffee, tea, and the not drinking of alcoholic beverages are visible signs that a mormon is different. since almost everyone drinks coffee or tea, especially in situations when it is socially offered, it is a quick visible, outward sign that someone is potentially mormon. its the same thing as jews wearing a yamulka or tefillin (“Phylacteries” in Matthew) in public.
the origin of the specific restriction against coffee and tea was BY’s desire to keep real money available and donated to the church rather than for imports (see Arrington’s Great Basin Kingdom). the reason for the restriction against wine as stated in D&C 89, was that conspiring men might use it in some way…perhaps from JS’s personal experience of alledgedly drugging sacramental wine with hallucinogens. there were no restrictions on beer until the prohibition.
while all this history is routinely ignored, people still apologetically justify the WoW based on health. the health rules of the WoW are suggestions and not commandment. good ideas, sure, but to be used with prudence and caution. the WoW as required by policy of the church today has nothing whatsoever to do with health. it is simply a test of obedience, and a visible outward sign that you are an observant mormon.
i tend to think of the WoW as “mormon phylacteries”
Matthew 23:5 wrote:But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments…
There are SO many things that are bad for you — why single out coffee and tea? I do not believe I would feel guilty or sinful after drinking coffee. But as much as not drinking coffee is an outward sign of church membership, being a member and drinking it would be just as great a sign to other members (and observant non-LDS) that you reject at least parts of the LDS faith. Many people that I love and respect would be hurt by this. So, as long as I desire to call myself a Mormon and associate with other Mormons, I will respect OUR customs. Yep — Roy has it…one may think it’s a sort of ridiculous policy, but I’m certainly not going to broadcast any disagreement, or openly violate it in front of others, just as I wouldn’t start challenging time honored beliefs in any culture without some point to it. Personally, I don’t mind forgoing coffee and tea; it’s a habit to say “no” to it.
Now, do I agree with the statement that used to be promulgated which some GA said “Even the weakest of saints can observe the Word of Wisdom” is a very egocentric comment, void of compassion or respect for the different challenges all people face. I don’t think much of that statement. But you won’t see me openly drinking coffee in front of members, or even privately at home.
Well, put it this way, I have had several health issues which are directly related to tea/coffee consumption. Coming off them has not made my health perfect, but it has got rid of these issues. One of them was insomnia, but there were others of a more personal nature. In fact, a year or two BEFORE I became active again, my doctor told me to cut back on my tea, coffee and alcohol, because of a certain issue. I thought, “where have I heard this before?”So in this sense, I have a personal experience (testimony?) of the matter.
A lot of the tea and coffee around here is either cheap and nasty or rather nice and very expensive, so I don’t miss them in that sense.
I keep an open mind on green tea by the way, but haven’t consumed any for however long.
Scooter, I think you’re on to something. As Ray mentioned, there are other threads you can search through, even feel free to bump them up with a current post. Up in the search window, pop in Word of Wisdom, and you’ll see lots of references in prior posts.
Or click on this link and check this thread out…Brian gave a great overview of different kinds of tea…good stuff.
http://www.staylds.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=162&hilit=Word+of+wisdom ” class=”bbcode_url”> http://www.staylds.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=162&hilit=Word+of+wisdom I think most people in the church understand the limits of this law…but it is a good tool to teach youth to help keep them out of trouble. But my bishop has even agreed with me, on the list of things to worry about, this is low on the totem pole. It surprises me it is still on the TR question list.
Thanks, Heber. I will bump that thread. wayfarer is spot on. Richard Sosis examined the history of two hundred communes founded in the US in the 19th century (Mormonism was a noteworthy example of one). He wanted to determine why some of them were successful and lasting and others were not. (I’m quoting from Jonathan Haidt’s book The Righteous Mind). Quote:He found one master variable: the number of costly sacrifices that each commune demanded from its members. It was things like giving up alcohol and tobacco, fasting for days at a time, conforming to a communal dress code or hairstyle, or cutting ties with outsiders. For religious communities, the effect was perfectly linear: the more sacrifice a commune demanded, the longer it lasted. But Sosis was surprised to discover that demands for sacrifice did not help secular communes. Most of them failed within eight years, and there was no correlation between sacrifice and longevity. . . Sosis argues that rituals, laws, and other constraints work best when they are sacralized. . . when secular organizations demand sacrifice, every member has a right to ask for a cost-benefit analysis, and many refuse to do things that don’t make logical sense.”
Essentially, we don’t drink coffee and tea because Mormons don’t drink coffee and tea. By not drinking coffee and tea, we are binding ourselves to the group through our sacrifice. If you want to go down the CBA / secular route, there are only a few I can think of that hold any water:
1 – damn, coffee is expensive!
2 – as a stimulant, it can be addictive and can alter your mental state. Does that impact ability to receive revelation? Bushman seems to think that was JS’s original thinking – that keeping the mind clear and body pure was one key to revelation.
3 – coffee breath. However, fast Sunday breath is far worse!
hawkgrrrl wrote:
3 – coffee breath….Really? I kind of have no problem with coffee breath. Yeah, it’s not mint gum, but it is better than just “bad breath” I think?
Gordon B. Hinckley was asked about these strict rules in an interview and he claimed they were “wonderful” because they will supposedly make people happier and healthier and also live longer. So then the interviewer asked him what was so wonderful about not drinking coffee and he had the following to say about it: Quote:…coffee has all kinds of caffeine in it, other things. You don’t need coffee.
Nobody needs coffee.You can get along without it… I can think of a lot of things people like to do that they can get along without but that doesn’t mean most of them will ever want to give up these habits permanently. In reality Church leaders and the correlation committee continue to insist that these forbidden substances are pure evil mostly because previous Church leaders said so and they don’t want to admit that the Church could possibly have been wrong about this all this time. There have been other researchers that claim moderate amounts of wine are good for you. Other studies have shown that the life expectancy of Mormons in the US is not significantly different from any other non-smokers in the US on average. Even if smoking really is doing significant harm I still have a hard time believing that this makes people that smoke “unworthy” or that any kind of god that is worth paying attention to would actually condemn anyone eternally for this “sin” by itself.
It’s easy for Church leaders that are already accustomed to this strict level of abstinence and surrounded by others that don’t have a problem with it to expect others to be happy to do the same but personally I think they should pay more attention to just how much of a deal-breaker this really is for many members and investigators and consider whether this is really necessary. On my mission in Brazil coffee was a big deal; most investigators there drank coffee and had a hard time understanding why they should stop and even if they did stop many of them would miss it and start drinking it again shortly after they were baptized. I know there are many inactive members that basically don’t want anything to do with the LDS Church anymore mostly because they don’t want to stop drinking or smoking and they have the impression that this is what being Mormon is all about.
It is also a major source of disappointment and conflict when there are family members that don’t see eye-to-eye on this issue and I suspect this will only get worse now that more active Church members are suddenly losing faith after they are already married than before. Basically I think this doctrine will hurt the Church’s credibility over the long run because it doesn’t make sense to most people nowadays and it will cause the LDS Church to become even more of an extreme fringe organization that is increasingly at odds with the mainstream. That’s why I think they should simply say that Joseph Smith prayed about these questions and felt inspired to give this advice and let members interpret what this means to them on an individual basis without attaching all the extra significance to it that they currently do.
Yes — as Hawkgrrl said, sacrifice breeds commitment. If you can get people making huge sacrifices for something, they grow more committed and less willing to abandon the beliefs. The sunk cost and the cognitive dissonance that sacrifice creates, prevents leaving. The problem I see is that it can be a double-edged sword — for me, the sacrifices of our Church became so onerous with so little practical benefit it has been much easier to stop making those sacrifices. I think there must be an optimal level of sacrifice or people start questioning whether they are worth it….
And if the leaders of the organization demanding huge sacrifice start behaving in ways that makes the membership question whether there really is divine inspiration behind the policies and required sacrifices, the membership view it as a secular organization, which then makes it easy to stop sacrificing.
That is some of what happened to me; the behavior of my local leaders led to me consider the idea that our Church has far more secularism than I was comfortable with at the time.
SilentDawning wrote:I think there must be an optimal level of sacrifice or people start questioning whether they are worth it….
Optimal for who? For persons in faith crisis? For new investigators? For TBM’s with pioneer heritage? For the majority (50%+) of currently active members?
Though I am no sociologist nor statistician, I can’t help but wonder if the church’s current sacrifice/benefit ratio isn’t already optimal for the majority of currently active members. Each individual may have different preferences and comfort levels as to how much sacrifice they feel should be asked from their religious organization. But as much as I am on board with “concern for the one” stuff, I would advise caution before changing things to be more palatable to the fringe disaffected, the inactive, or the non-member. It is possible that no policy change will bring these people back (or get them to convert in the case of the non-LDS), but any policy change faces the risk of upsetting the apple cart and your primary base of support.
DevilsAdvocate wrote:On my mission in Brazil coffee was a big deal; most investigators there drank coffee and had a hard time understanding why they should stop and even if they did stop many of them would miss it and start drinking it again shortly after they were baptized. I know there are many inactive members that basically don’t want anything to do with the LDS Church anymore mostly because they don’t want to stop drinking or smoking and they have the impression that this is what being Mormon is all about.
Some would argue that it is not our place to widen the path of salvation, only to proclaim the standards set forth by He who made The Way possible. Those same people might draw comparisons between possible loosening of standards and the process of apostasy that occurred in the primitive church (I guess that argument is already being made by the FLDS, the point being that you can’t please all the people all the time.)
DevilsAdvocate wrote:That’s why I think they should simply say that Joseph Smith prayed about these questions and felt inspired to give this advice and let members interpret what this means to them on an individual basis without attaching all the extra significance to it that they currently do.
Some would then seek more clarification from the living prophet on these issues. It can be a difficult situation. If the Prophet speaks to God and would never lead us astray and my personal interpretation is at odds with my neighbors interpretation, why wouldn’t I want to know which of us was actually right in God’s eyes?
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