Pentecostal and holiness churches went against the cultural tides when they opposed cigarette smoking throughout the 20th century.

Early on, the military was promoting cigarettes. So was Congress and Hollywood, Madison Avenue and (of course) Big Tobacco. But Pentecostals held their ground — and were eventually vindicated.

Pentecostals argued that smoking was a nasty, disgusting, filthy habit (all true, of course) and that it defiled the temple of the Holy Ghost. But that isn’t why they carried the day. They won the war on tobacco because of science and the surgeon general.

Cigarettes caused cancer. Period. Game, set, match.

While Pentecostals carried the day on cigarettes, they’ve been less successful when it comes to alcohol. And in this battle, science could be their adversary instead of their ally.

Time magazine’s headline says it all: Heavy Drinkers Outlive Nondrinkers, Study Finds. Here’s a couple of paragraphs from the Time article:

“The sample of those who were studied included individuals between ages 55 and 65 who had had any kind of outpatient care in the previous three years. The 1,824 participants were followed for 20 years. One drawback of the sample: a disproportionate number, 63%, were men. Just over 69% of the never-drinkers died during the 20 years, 60% of the heavy drinkers died and only 41% of moderate drinkers died.

These are remarkable statistics. Even though heavy drinking is associated with higher risk for cirrhosis and several types of cancer (particularly cancers in the mouth and esophagus), heavy drinkers are less likely to die than people who have never drunk.”

The study flies in the face of conventional wisdom. And it seems, at first blush, to defy common sense.

But here’s my question: If future studies suggest that complete abstention from alcohol is injurious to one’s health, should Pentecostals and other anti-alcohol churches rethink their long-held position on alcohol?

Furthermore, if alcohol, in moderation, is conclusively shown to be good for one’s health (and the scientific evidence increasingly says it is), should Protestant churches re-embrace the use of wine during the Eucharist?

The use of grape juice during Communion is apparently a 19th century innovation. All of the churches with apostolic succession, as far as I know, use wine when they commemorate the Last Supper.

Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Greek Catholic, Roman Catholic, Anglican — they all have used the fermented fruit of the vine for centuries or millennia.

I am reading Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, by Diarmaid MacCullouch, and I’m struggling to get through it. It’s just so darned….lengthy.

Longer than the Bible long. (An exaggeration, but just barely.)
Longer than the New Testament long.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s a “triumphantly executed achievement” — to quote Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. “Electrifying scholarship” — to quote MacCullouch’s publisher. Well written.

But at times, it reminds me of one of those Bible genealogies: “And so and so begat so and so, who begat so-and-so, who dug a well near the hills of such and such that stands to this day.”

(As my wife correctly noted, a genealogy is generally only interesting if it’s your own genealogy. Or if, at a minimum, you recognize most of the names.)

Here’s the book’s greatest strength and greatest weakness. It tries to summarize the history and beliefs of all Christians. Everywhere. At all times. In 1,000 pages.

Want to know about the evolution of the church in Ethiopia? It’s in there. Kiev? Yes. Bagdhad? Youbetcha. Hundreds of Popes, Patriarchs and Emperors. (Seemingly) thousands of crusades, jihads, Holy Wars and inquisitions. Multitudes of doctrinal disputes both big and small. I’m learning a lot, but it’s all a blur.

I loved Diarmaid MacCulloch’s much-heralded book on the Reformation. But the book devoted 800 or so pages to roughly 500 years of history. Enough space to bring Luther and Calvin and Wesley to life. But it’s a lot harder to cover 3,000 years of history in 1,000 pages.

I’ve seen restaurants that sell a 4 pound hamburger for some outlandish price — $25 or $30. If you eat it all in 30 minutes, they give it to you for free — plus you get a certificate suitable for framing and your picture goes on their wall. A few people attempt the feat and succeed. Others try and fail. Some enjoy the challenge. But it’s hard for me to imagine a rational, sane, well-balanced person actually enjoying the burger. Even if it’s the highest caliber beef on the planet.

That’s kind of where I am with this book. It’s a good book. It’s a great book. But it’s just too long, too big, a blur of names, dates and locations. The serving size is gynormous. I’ve consumed just over half of it. My brain is full, but I’ll keep plodding along until I get it done.

Leonard Pitts Jr., the Pulitzer Prize-winning Miami Herald columnist, has written a column that lavishes praise on former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Here’s one of the nicer lines by Pitts:

“Huckabee seems to have the novel idea that it’s more important to find answers than win arguments, more important to speak conscience than parrot talking points.”

Heather Hahn, formerly of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has a nice article about Sep. 11, the proposed mosque near Ground Zero and how Methodists respond to the issue.

Nice to see an Arkansas minister (of Muslim descent, no less) quoted in the story.

I’m reading a book on the history of Christianity and I’m 300 pages into it, but I’ve barely made a dent in it.

I’ve still got 1,600 years of history and 700 pages of paper to wade through before I reach the finish line. And it crossed my mind last night — maybe I should just quit.

My wife says there’s no shame in throwing in the towel. I’ve been reading about church history non-stop for the past few months and if my brain is full, it’s fine to call it a day, she suggests.

This year, I’ve read The Jesus Wars by Philip Jenkins and A New History of Early Christianity by Charles Freeman and Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire that Rescued Western Civilization by Lars Brownsworth and God’s Battalions by Rodney Stark — all of them focusing on Christianity prior to 1453.

Maybe, I need to shift topics for a bit.

Do you ever give up on a book? What’s the most pages you’ve ever read before pulling the plug?

And it’s located in the Pentagon.

The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg has all the details.

h/t: Mollie at Get Religion.

Baptist Press has a nice story about a struggling English-language Baptist congregation that called it quits after 45 years. Instead of selling the building, they gave it away to a Spanish-language congregation.

CNN reports bones belonging to John the Baptist may have been discovered in Bulgaria.

The wrist-bone of John the Baptist can be seen at Topkapi Palace in Constantinople. The skull? It’s been spotted in Rome, Jerusalem, Constantinople, Damascus and numerous other sites.

This is a pretty weird story. A police officer was injured while breaking up a fight — and it turns out the fight was staged. The genius behind the fake fight? A minister.

I thought about poor saintly Mary Lindsay when I heard about Nayara Goncalves, a Southern Florida cell phone store manager who used her Christian faith to defeat an armed felon. Goncalves’ story (below) has a happy ending. Mary Lindsay’s testimony, on the other hand, ended in tragedy back in 1978. Goncalves has become a mini-celebrity. Mary Lindsay became a chapter in an Ann Rule book. To start with, here’s Goncalves’ story, courtesy of AP: (more…)