Jesus the Teetotaler

Jesus drank wine (Mark 14:23-25; Matthew 26:27-29; Luke 22:17-18). He even produced wine: When the alcohol supply dwindled at the wedding in Cana, a youthful Jesus turned six jars of water—holding 20 to 30 gallons each—into wine (John 2:1-11). Pretty impressive for a guy's first miracle.

For centuries, Christians have commemorated Jesus' imbibitions at the Last Supper by drinking wine during Holy Communion. The Catholic Church has always used wine during Eucharistic celebrations, as did all Protestant denomination until just over a century ago. Martin Luther along with John Calvin and Ulrich Zwingli agreed that wine should he used in the celebration of the Eucharist.

Why then do several Protestant denominations in America—including many Methodist and Southern Baptist churches—claim that Jesus never drank alcohol?

Ironically, it was the European wine industry' that put in motion the idea of a teetotaling1 Jesus, by financing Louis Pasteur's research to find a method to destroy the bacteria that were spoiling their vintages.

In 1865 Pasteur discovered that the bacteria in liquids such as wine, beer and milk could be killed by heating the liquid to a temperature of about I40°F for about 25 minutes. The process, which came to be known as "pasteurization," did not alter the liquid's taste or alcohol level.

Pasteur's experiments were noted across the Atlantic Ocean by a Vineland, Massachusetts, dentist named Dr. Thomas Bramwell Welch. Welch, a pious Methodist communion steward, was becoming increasingly disturbed that many of his fellow parishioners were having a hard time stopping with just one drink at communion on Sundays. Welch felt they were profaning the Sabbath by continuing to drink in their homes and in taverns after services. He set out to produce a preservable nonalcoholic grape juice.

Welch simply applied the pasteurization process to freshly squeezed grape juice, rather than the fermented juice Pasteur used. In 1869, he succeeded in producing the first preserved nonalcoholic fruit juice. (Read on)

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