Acts 29

Reforming America: Baptists in the Prohibition and Temperance Movement

The problem had slowly grown to crisis proportions. Americans’ abuse of alcohol had destroyed homes, marriages, and in some quarters seemed to threaten civilization itself. This abuse was centered in the American saloon. Dingy and dirty, it normally housed a bar, some crude furniture, and featured bawdy paintings or photographs on the walls and ceilings. Drunks loitered outside, and the inside bred crime, prostitution, and violence. Bartenders did not hesitate to serve children and known drunkards. The bribes saloon owners engaged in to avoid certain regulations corrupted the courts, police, and politicians. 

As more and more breweries established themselves in America their political influence grew. This made it difficult for the temperance forces to gain lasting victories in legislation. Breweries owned the majorities of saloons and the more people drank the more money they made. They placed saloons in strategic places including outside the gates of  manufacturing plants. Workers stopped at these saloons after payday and spent money desperately needed to support their families. In one case in 1908 one manufacturing plant issued 3600 paychecks on payday and all but one returned endorsed by a saloon.  The saloons also offered free lunch to men and boys to get them inside earlier and more often. Breweries believed giving free drinks to young boys made a good investment for the saloon, and was widely practiced.  In most cases respectable ladies would go blocks out of their way just to avoid going by one. However, there were exceptions, there came a time when Christian women had grown weary of being abused, neglected, or placed in poverty by alcoholic husbands.

The Women’s Crusade
“Shut up, vimmins! I quits!”
Charley Beck 1874

The cold wind blew, the snow piled in drifts, it was January of 1874. On the outskirts of the small Ohio town of Washington Court House dozens of ladies huddled outside the premises of the last drinking establishment still in operation in the area. Days before they had hired workmen to build a  small hut on wheels that the women called their “tabernacle,”. Inside they had placed a small stove and in between periods of prayer and singing of hymns women came inside to warm themselves. Their persistence and moral example had already shamed every saloon out of business in Hillsboro Ohio, and the town limits of Washington Court House. The saloon owners were no match for women who would march up to a saloon and stand outside praying, reading the Bible, and singing. They would operate in shifts, never ceasing from dawn until the establishment closed around midnight, refusing to stop until the saloon closed. Some saloon keepers would hold out for days, watching their business dwindle away to nothing, others would throw up their hands right away and give up after seeing the ladies march up the street toward their business.  After the owners had given up, the ladies would have the liquor brought out to the street, split the barrels with an ax, and praise God as the beer and liquor seeped into the dusty ground.

At first Charley Beck seemed tougher than the other saloon owners in town. The Cincinnati brewers had promised him two thousand in cash and free beer if he could keep his establishment open a year, but there was no stopping the ladies crusade. They first rigged a locomotive headlight to shine a bright light on the door and then proceeded to record the name of every man that entered the premises. As the weeks went by the number of names dwindled until finally no one came in at all. In disgust, Charley Beck came to the door and declared to the singing women with his strong German accent, “Oh, vimmins!” he shouted. “Shut up, vimmins! I quits!” 

As the crusade moved on, similar results followed. Xenia, Ohio, then a city of 10,000, went from 120 saloons to zero in the space of a month. During the crusade the women endured drenchings with buckets of beer, men threatened to split them in two with an ax, one bartender brought in a cannon and threatened to blow them all to kingdom come, and magistrates often had them all thrown in jail. Still they prayed, sang, and in the face of all the threats they responded with a kind word and turned the other cheek. One by one, in state after state, the women shut down the saloons. By 1875 between twenty-five and thirty thousand saloons had closed and 750 breweries had gone out of business. 

Like other temperance movements that had come before, the Women’s Crusade had extraordinary but only temporary success.  Due to the movement’s ebb and the lack of important legislation being passed, by the time a year had gone by places like Washington Court House had more saloons than before the Crusade.

The Slow March of Temperance

Alcohol had come to America with the first generation of colonists. When the Puritans landed on the shores of north America they brought liquor with them. Unaware of the terrible health risks associated with the over-consumption of distilled alcohol they called it a “beneficial and necessary” beverage. When they drank rum it made them warm, so they believed it was a source of energy. When illness struck, alcohol eased their pain, so they concluded that it had healing powers. They maintained their Biblical standards though, stating that wine was from God, but drunkenness was from the devil. They emphasized moderation, and forbade public drunkenness. They believed that every man should be responsible before God to exercise self control.

The culture of the time encouraged drinking. Pastors were some of the hardest hit by this social norm. Pastors traveled from town to town and house to house to fulfill their duties. At each place of business parishioners would offer the pastor a toast, in accordance to his high standing in the community. It was rude to refuse. Each house he visited offered him drinks of rum to honor his coming, it was no wonder that many pastors ruined their reputations, health, and ministry due to alcohol abuse.

 Baptists paid attention to this abuse early in the republic. In 1801 the Mattapony (Virginia) Baptist Association reminded their parishioners that, “Drunkenness is a sin, which in the New Testament is expressly declared, to be a bar to the kingdom of God…Quarreling, fighting, profanity, and even something like brutality, are the almost certain consequences of habitual drunkenness…Those who have often endeavored to avert this evil, and have been still frequently overcome, cannot do better than to enter into a determination through divine aid, never to taste a drop of anything that can intoxicate, except in time of communion. ”

Although Temperance forces passed some important legislation in the early 19th century the Temperance movement primarily tried to accomplish their goals through persuasion. Temperance forces encouraged moderate consumption of alcohol and recommended beer and light wine instead of rum, or whisky. As time marched on medical opinions changed about alcohol consumption. Scientific research refuted the commonly held belief that alcohol warmed the body or could cure many ills. Research began to suggest that alcohol instead caused all sorts of disease and the tide of temperance began to move forward in waves.

The End of Moderation
"If I believed that Christ, knowing the nature of intoxicating wine… justified this use by His example, I would repudiate Him as a savior."
Prohibitionist Spokeswomen Helen Gougar

The small steps of progress were not satisfactory to the majority of reformers. After the failure of the Women’s Crusade to achieve lasting results, groups like the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) campaigned for prohibition of the liquor traffic and personal total abstention.

 Difficulties arose however as they tried to rectify what appeared to be contrary teaching in the scriptures. The passages that declared that Jesus had turned water into wine had to be reinterpreted, as well as Paul’s admonition to Timothy concerning wine. Some parts of the Bible were disregarded altogether. At the national meeting of the WCTU in 1882 a Louisville clergyman stated that he had previously thought that all passages in the Bible were worthy of belief and practice. However now he believed that certain admonitions, like when Paul told Timothy to, “Take a little wine for thy stomach’s sake,” were never meant to be absolute, but were “provisional, prudential adjustments to the times by a man who was all things to all men.”

This type of blatant disregard for the clear intention of scripture repulsed most Baptists. Their historical position had been one of careful moderation, and they had always used wine in communion because that is what their Bibles told them that Jesus used.    However, the  controversy raged and new arguments came to the forefront. Teetotalers, originating in the 1830s and labeled such because they promised to abstain totally with a capitol “Tee,” became influential in Baptist circles. In 1878 Dr. Abraham Coles argued that the wine Jesus used was unfermented and that by following his example of abstention all Christians, barring medical emergency, should abstain. Like other Baptist reformers he had seen the appalling consequences of alcohol abuse and believed, “the only remedy for the dreadful evils of intemperance is total abstinence. ”

Other Baptists agreed that alcohol abuse was a serious problem, but objected to this change in the long pattern of Baptist scriptural interpretation and subsequent policy. Alvah Hovey published an article in Baptist Quarterly Review, stating that there is no biblical foundation for the two-wine theory, that there is no biblical proof of Christ’s giving simple grape juice to his disciples in the cup, and that there is strong extra-biblical evidence of ‘this fruit of the vine’ being the wine mingled with water.” He went on to ask the Teetotalers to reconsider their position, asserting that it was the mark of a Baptist to follow the law of Christ wherever it might lead.   Even noted skeptics like Clarence Darrow were baffled by orthodox Christians who promoted total abstention, “If God, or the Son of God, put alcohol into his system then alcohol cannot be a poison that has no place in that system. ”

Other authors, so amazed at the apparent contradictions in the Teetotaling argument, asked if the “Eighteenth Amendment (prohibition) was an amendment to the Constitution or the New Testament. ” These objections did not convince the majority of Baptists in the Prohibitionist camp. They insisted that times had changed and if Jesus was walking the earth today he would be firmly in the Teetotaler’s camp.  Methodist prohibitionist spokeswomen Helen Gougar added that, “If I believed that Christ, knowing the nature of intoxicating wine and foreseeing what a terrible curse its use would bring upon the human race, justified this use by His example, I would repudiate Him as a savior, ” and in 1924 Dr. Charles Foster Kent of Yale was hired to rewrite the Bible, removing all references to wine. 

Unprecedented Political Involvement

No person shall manufacture, sell, barter, transport, import, export, deliver, furnish or possess any intoxicating liquor except as authorized in this act…”
From the Volstead Act

The movement to prohibit alcohol pushed Baptists into unprecedented political involvement. Anti-Saloon League Representatives led rallies in churches and preachers declared that ridding the United States of alcohol would bring forth a golden age. Proponents of post-millennial theology claimed that moral reforms like prohibition would help to usher in Christ’s kingdom. In 1890 the Southern Baptist Convention declared that “No Christian Citizen should ever cast a ballot for any man, measure or platform that is opposed to the annihilation of the liquor traffic. ” As the church’s involvement in politics increased so did the resentment toward the church increase.  A bill to revoke the tax exemption of churches was introduced in the New York State legislature and the opponents of Prohibition accused Christians of compelling rather than leading.  However popular support for prohibition was solid and by January 17, 1920 the United States officially went dry. The Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified quickly, supported strongly by evangelicals including the Baptists and Methodists.

Proponents of prohibition rejoiced at the passing of the Volstead Act. The years of prohibition significantly lowered the per-capita consumption of alcohol, but like the temperance movements that had come before the effect was temporary.  Deaths from alcohol consumption dropped for a time, and many of the working class saved more money or put it to good use instead of spending it on alcohol. However, prohibition also led to the increased visibility and power of organized crime and further deepened the corruption in many areas of government. The changes in Bible interpretation that were instituted during the temperance and prohibition movements would outlast the Eighteenth Amendment and many Baptist groups continue to debate the issue today.

During the 13 years of Prohibition the Baptists strongly supported the enforcement of the Volstead Act, although there were more pressing issues on the horizon. Deep divisions over critical doctrinal issues had begun to trouble the newly formed Northern Baptist Convention. Large numbers of influential leaders in the denomination were actively denying the fundamentals of the faith. Some Baptists would stay and compromise their doctrinal positions. Other Baptists would separate and proclaim their belief in the inerrancy of the Word of God, but that is another chapter in Baptist history.

Bibliography
  Asbury, Herbert. The Great Illusion: An Informal History of Prohibition. (New York: Greenwood 1968) 114.
  Asbury, 112.
  Martin, James Kirby. Drinking in America: A History. (New York: Macmillan 1982) 104.
  Asbury, 76.
  Asbury, 85.
  Brackney, William Ed. Baptist Life and Thought: A Source Book. (Valley Forge: Judson 1998). 148.
  Bendroth, Margaret L. Fundamentalism and Gender: 1875 to the present. (New Haven Yale 1993). 39.
  McBeth, H. Leon. The Baptist Heritage: Four Centuries of Baptist Witness. (Nashville: Broadman 1987) 250.
 Brackney, 278.
 Brackney, 279.
 Sinclair, Andrew. Era of Excess: A Social History of the Prohibition Movement. (New York: Harper and Row 1955) 69.
  Sinclair, 70.
  Sinclair, 70.
  Blocker, Jack S. Retreat from Reform: The Prohibitionist Movement in the United States 1890-1913. (Westport: Greenwood 1976) 86.
  Behr, Edward. Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Changed America. (New York: Arcade 1996) 115.
  Asbury, 99.
  Sinclair, 71.