IT ISN'T WHAT YOU SAY, IT'S HOW YOU SAY IT

A friend of mine e-mailed this article to me the other day and I flagged it in my inbox to revisit later and possibly use as a springboard for a piece of my own. I've written on the subject before and I debated whether I wanted to get into the issues surrounding Christianity and alcohol again. My last article on the subject was published back in January, I think, and it took on a bit of a life of it's own. There's just an aweful lot that could be said and a lot of it already has been, by smarter and better folk than myself. No real need or desire to rehash it all again. Finally I determined I'd just provide the link to the article along with a couple of quick observations of my own. I'll leave the full-blown treatise to someone else to pen. I'm sure they will or have already.

The article started off with the oft mis-attributed quote "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to prosper." Once I got past that tired slogan, I found myself at once in agreement with the author and slightly annoyed by him as well. After perusing the nearly 100 comments on the Townhall.com website, I discovered I was not the only one. I don't know this guy, and I don't read his columns, so for all I know this type of thing is his typical schtick. For starters, Mr. Giles makes the occasional reference to cheap, fizzy American lagers in a favorable light (no pun intended), but I can certainly forgive that. After all, it is no sin to like bad beer ... I don't think.

What obviously sticks out like a Fundamentalist at a Juggalo Convention to me is just how hard this guy tries to be blatantly caustic and contoversial. While his carcasm and ad hominem attacks are admittedly funny and sadly accurate for the most part, they just seem to smack of trying just a tad too hard to piss off a certain narrowly-defined segment of the population. Because of this, the article almost comes off as more of a hit-piece than a contribution to the "Christians and alcohol" debate. Flame-throwers, whether they be right or wrong just don't tend to advance the debate in my experience.

Don't get me wrong, the neo-prohibitionists of our day need to be challenged with regard to their self-righteous attitudes and obviously bad hermeneutics, but it really seemed to me like this guy was just going for pure shock value. Tactfullness is a lost art or at least it is hopelessly misplaced. The reason I find this to be a shame is that the substance of Giles' article is solid - I agree with his argument in toto - I just wish he would have said it in a little bit more of a charitable manner. What could have been a convincing and potentially opinion-shifting piece was effectively rendered a "preaching to the choir" soliloquy because of the tone.

At least that's my thought. Am I going soft? I don't know - you tell me!