Is working for Budweiser wrong???

Percentages are big deals to accountants and investors. If you ask the average person on the street what Anheiser Busch does, what will they tell you?

And when you get that answer, you will know that the percentage has nothing to do with it.

 

Okay, so you have a line, which makes a distinction, but there is no percentage involved, even though a company's main product cannot be a particular product, though you refuse to state how much of a product is necessary to be the main product. Being a 'numbers guy,' I don't think this type of logic could work for me. </font>[/QUOTE]This is an absolutely ridiculous line of questioning.

If the purpose of a given company label is to make and distribute the drug of alcohol then employment in the production or distribution of that label and its direct subsidiary/ancillary products should be avoided. If the purpose of an establishment is to serve or distribute alcohol and that is what it is known for then it should be avoided.... See 1 Corinthians for more on why we should not abuse our liberty when it might harm the consciences of others.

The only way you find that "percentage or line in the sand" is by not doing business with any company. They are all inter-related in some form or fashion.

 

cojosh, if the guy you are talking about is the kind of Christian you would want in the band otherwise then he will respect your stand and be gracious. If he becomes hostile and defensive then he probably shouldn't have been part of the ministry to begin with.

I would suggest that you simply take him to 1 Corinthians especially chapter 10 and discuss Christian libery with him. The Corinthians seemed to have been more concerned with preserving their "rights" than pursuing God's glory.

 

Percentages are big deals to accountants and investors. If you ask the average person on the street what Anheiser Busch does, what will they tell you?

So the popular image of a company is what can make it filthy endeavor to work for?

 

Abstain from the appearance of evil.... In the minds of MOST christians working for budweiser is a poor testimony. More than likely this dude isn't witnessing to his co-workers. I promise you from personal experience that if he is being a witness lost folk don't take him serious. Why? Well whether it is right or wrong even most lost folk would think it is weird that a born-again christian would participate in the process of selling booze to the masses. Even most pagans would contend that a christian working in a beer factory would APPEAR to be wrong. Its kind of like this: "I don't smoke the dope I just sell it"
"As a christian I don't agree with all the filthy, sexual commercials that my company runs to promote it's product but I don't mind the paycheck".

No matter how you want to play it. Whether it be with semantics or whatever. A christian working for budwesier cannot work for the company and at the same time somehow claim to not endorse how his company markets their product with sex filled ads etcc.... (I think we all know about beer ads.)
To claim to do so is to be hyocritical with solid evidence to back up his hypocrisy. Which would be his paycheck.

This is not quite the same but it reminds me of a time "back in the day" when I was a boozer myself. Before I got saved. Well, I went into a club one night and lo and behold there sat a fellow from our baptist church who was in the singles group. He was in his mid-twenties. The fellow had a big ole Long Island iced tea in his hand. I was three sheets in the wind myself. Well this cat proceeds to tell me how God had sent him into the clubs to witness to folk. All my rowdy friends along with myself just laughed our fool heads off. That fellow's credability wasn't worth a nickel.
BTW, I bet some of these folk on here saying its okay to work for budwesier might have a problem if this fellow was filling frosted mugs with budweiser at some dive somewhere on the bad side of town.
Is the bartender any worse than the fellow who is manning the vat back at the plant or the "beer man" who delivers to the stores. etc...?
Your buddy may be trying to "put bread on the table". That is fine. I promise you if he put God to the test that God would find him a job that didn't involve the beer industry and all of the filth that goes along with marketing it.

 

Scott J, shannonL, I humbly stand corrected. Thanks for explaining your positions so clearly!

Where was somebody like you two to explain that to my own dad? He worked for a warehouse that distributed beer, he was a route driver, and he quit going to church with my mother and us kids because he said they were 'hypocrits' for judging what he did for a living. He always justified it by saying he didn't drink, and he didn't force anyone to drink until they were drunk BUT I always was aware that he had to quit drinking beer around the time I was born because he became diabetic. No wonder my Christian walk was always such a struggle once I got old enough to question why dad didn't go to church, too...
(I knew coming to this board was a good idea!)

cojosh, I was thinking of my own dad when I read your post about your friend; I guess I was still hearing his arguments in my mind. He always sounded so reasonable to me, too

I think you've received some sound advice about what to do next. I'm praying for God's wisdom and grace for you to have that talk with your friend.

 

AMEN Shannon !!!! After reading all three pages of this "debate",it is refreshing to finally read one post that tells it like it REALLY is.I read all three pages just flatly amazed at the lack of discernment exhibited in most of the responses to the OP.Beer is booze and booze is wrong.I'm amazed that that is even a topic for debate on a "baptist"board.I guess I'm just an old fashioned Bible-believing Baptist....and I won't apologize for it either.

Greg Sr.

 

shannonL , Greg,

This whole all production and drinking of alcohol is evil is a localized Christian tradition that originated in the 19th century.
So no, most folks don't think anything at all when they hear somebody who is a Christian works at Budweiser.
If they think anything at all, when they hear beer + Christian it's going to be something like this...
http://www.sintsixtus.be/eng/index2.html

 

While your comments are essentially right, to use this verse is wrong. This verse is not talking about something that might appear evil though it really is not. It is not talking about our testimony of what people might think when they see us. It talking about things that actually are evil. The word "appearance" is a word that means actual thing.

 

a job is a job is a job is a job is a job is a job... etc...

if the job is not compromising the guys faith, then let him be. if it is, then talk to him about it and suggest a different job/s.

a job is a job is a job... only if it does not compromise ones faith in God. if the guy was workin at some niteclub with strippers... now THAT would not be right. thats going a little far because that will lead him astray. its inevitable. if the guy doesnt drink and doesnt ever want to drink. then let him work at the pickin factory. he's himself you cant change him. if the guys got the same strength in faith, if not more, when he comes out of the job, then let him back in the band... gosh.

 

So long as you know that not all "old fashioned Bible-believing Baptists" were tee-totalers.

As Mioque said, prohibitionism originated in the 19th century and eventually carried the day among most Baptists. </font>[/QUOTE]Wasn't it the Spurgeon, the prince of preachers, who smoked cigars and drank ale?

 

"a job is a job is a job... only if it does not compromise ones faith in God. if the guy was workin at some niteclub with strippers... now THAT would not be right. thats going a little far because that will lead him astray. its inevitable. if the guy doesnt drink and doesnt ever want to drink. then let him work at the pickin factory. he's himself you cant change him. if the guys got the same strength in faith, if not more, when he comes out of the job, then let him back in the band... gosh." WHAT WISDOM! In other words, if your faith is strong you can sell beer. I beg your pardon fellow, if your faith is strong you will run as far away from this as you can!

 

Thing is, even if something is a relatively new idea among Baptists, does that make it null and void?

I see this "argument" around here all the time........"well, thats not how they thought "x" number of years ago....."

As if that is then a legitimate argument FOR that issue. It really doesn't make all that much difference in many areas WHEN the idea came. Especially if you are talking about something which holds some sort of societal stigma. I know this thread is not about smoking, but someone just mentioned it, and the effects of smoking were not generally known back then like they are today...so of course there wasn't the same stigma on it as there is now.

 

No, but it is proof that it is a human tradition and possibly a fad.

 

Remember what kind of people thought it was wrong for Jesus to eat and drink with sinners?

 

And yet, he really enjoyed fine cigars....

http://www.spurgeon.org/misc/cigars.htm

 

Last night I was walking down a street in my city, and saw a young lad of all of about 16 years of age with an aerosol can and a plastic bag. He was spraying the aerosol can into the bag and breathing in the contents.

Apparantly this is called "Huffing" and is popular with teenagers that like to take drugs.

Should then Christians abstain from using aerosol cans, or from work in factories where they are made?

As has been stated before, what is the appropriate level of personal responsablility for the use of a marketed consumer product?

 

I simply believe this situation is a matter of ethics. Is it ethical for a christian to make a living from a business that often times is responsible for the wrecking of lives by the product it distributes.
Some of you argue from the point of view that it is not this man's responsibility nor is it his employer's responsibility to look after every person who drinks beer. You folk must think it is so very noble of Mr. Coors coming on TV giving one of his "drink responsible" speeches as he strolls through the rockies. Maybe you think it is upstanding when those casino presidents run those ads to warn people of "compulsive gambling".

Remember this when you act selfishly with your "so called liberty" It is the drunks and compulsive gamblers that make all the beer companies and casino owners rich not the moderate drinker or the twice a year gambler.

For all of you who love to point out that it is prohibition that has made this argument such a big deal in the first place maybe you should travel abroad a little more often. Europe is full of alchoholics. Binge drinking which is a stupid new term btw. It is just "getting drunk" is all it is. It is just a term that the beer companies and booze advocates have come up with to downplay beer drinking in general. Anyway binge drinking is going out of control in Spain among teenagers and people in their early 20's. (They never had prohibition there)
Go spend some time with a missionary working with the french and do some poking around. Alot of French folk aren't binge drinkers. They are more of the "slowly being pickled" kind of drinker. Maybe it is because it has been a common practice for years and years to give their babies a little alchohol in their bottles to help them sleep.
Go to eastern Europe and Russia. Lots of people hooked on Vodka over there. (Prohibition doesnt' really have anything to do with why we get so hot and bothered about drinking. Fact of the matter is I have yet to really meet a mature christian that must have a drink of wine or beer just because he or she can have it. When you have to constantly go around flaunting "I have my liberty, I have my liberty , I have my liberty. all the time it is proof positive that that person isn't ready to even know how to handle his,her "liberty". Having your wine or beer just because you can and because you want to make a point of the fact that you can is nothing more than petty, childishness revealing itself in the life of a believer. It goes the same way for these folk who run out here and start some of the wall church that is anything but normal or traditional in every sense of the words not because God led them to do it but simply because somewhere back in their youth group days or bible school days some "old school" guy licked their candy so now they have a point to prove. They got to be different for the sake of being different.The woods is full of ministries like that.
Furthermore, all you Saturday night beer drinking, wine sipping baptist make me really irritated when you bring up Jesus and how he ate and drank with sinners. Like how Jesus fellowshipped with sinners is somehow justification for christians who like to go night clubbing while putting back a few brewskies all the while watching a bunch of half naked women get down on the dance floor.
WWJD? Well if was physically alive today He sure wouldn't be working for budweiser.
BTW, I have lots of personal experience in regarding this topic. I was a drunk from age 14 to 21. Booze and drugs just about killed me. They have killed alot of my friends. The day I got saved in the county jail of my hometown was the day God took drinking away from me along with the cocaine, pot etc... That day it was over. It have been 16yrs. Yet, it seems like it never even happened everything has been made new.
I also grew up in NC on a large tobacco farm. As my dad grew in his walk with the Lord he decided to stop growing tobacco all together.He said it simply didn't do anybody any good in this world at all. We didn't go hungry. God opened up other doors.
Also, all you booze advocates out there.If alchohol was illegal would you still partake? You see some of you hide behind the legality of the situation.If pot were legal would you smoke a litte dope after work to unwind? I've done enough of both to tell you that both can be used to relax without getting totally wasted. Let us say you buy a quarter bag of pot once a month and you maybe smoke half a joint after work to chill that is it.Would that be wrong if it was legal? Is that any different than buying a case of beer and putting it in your garage fridge only to pop a couple every other night or so to "unwind"?
(Personally prayer and Bible reading helps me unwind). People say pot and beer are different . Well in ways they are. I'm just telling ya you can take a few tokes just like a few sips and merely catch a buzz and not get totally stoned.
So that being said let us have a show of hands. Don't be shy now if it were legal how many baptist out there would take a toke or two here and there? You'll be screaming "Oh there is a difference between the two. The only differences are this Drinking alchohol is legal and it is mentioned in the Bible. Pot is illegal and as far as I can tell has very little to say about dope except when dealing with the word pharmacia or something like that. You get my point anyway.

When Jesus comes again if your comfortable being caught up out of a budweiser factory or a nightclub or bar be my guest. After all it is your liberty to do so. It sure isn't mine and I'm glad it isn't.