Ministry and beer

DirtyOldDuck said:

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There are plenty of religious debate threads that you have access to as a paid member, please don't start one here. This thread is unique in that the mods have allowed it to exist as an essentially religious thread, and it's been because there has been no ill will.

bottlebomber said:

There are plenty of religious debate threads that you have access to as a paid member, please don't start one here. This thread is unique in that the mods have allowed it to exist as an essentially religious thread, and it's been because there has been no ill will.

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I was not, and am not, trying to start a debate about religion. I actually enjoyed what I was reading for the most part, even though I don't believe the same things. Sorry if I offended you by pointing out something I found offensive and which had nothing to do with ministry and homebrew.

I agree, this is not supposed to be a thread about organized religion, but about how to talk to folks in church about our passion for home brewing.
Rather than respond in a confrontational way, just use the report button and ask the mods to remove an offensive post.

After much discussion among the moderators, I've edited the last seven pages of this thread, moved it back to the brewing forums, and have unlocked it. I erred on the side of overzealousness in deleting posts - please do not take it personally, it is not meant that way. But given the topic, I wanted to clear away as much as was necessary to try to get the thread (which some moderators thought was helpful and interesting) back on track.

To be clear, this is a thread about brewing in the context of ministry. Please post about that and only about that.

Some items to avoid:

- Exegetical dialogue and discussion; there was a lot of that in the last few pages, HBT is not the right forum for Biblical study
- Theological dialogue and discussion; again, not the right place on the internet for that
- Your religious beliefs on any other topic than brewing and beer

Remember that this is not a Christian-centric conversation and that any post that is provocative towards those with different beliefs than yours are inappropriate in this thread. You may post those in the Debate Forum, of course.

I've never made an attempt to hide my brewing from anyone in my congregation. The only reason I would have to hide the fact that I brew would be because my kegs would empty a lot faster. Everyone in my hall either drinks in moderation or, if they don't drink at all, have no problem with others drinking, again, in moderation. And I have not found anyone to connect brewing with gluttony/drunkenness.

I keep seeing this thread and it's not what I expected.



I thought you guys were talking about the band.

To Mods, thanks for not closing this thread. It is an interesting and relevant read.

I always assumed it would be ok, with Christianism tending to offer wine as part of the communion (you have to admit it's cool that your religion pretty much forces you to drink, even if for religious reasons and in moderation only) since Jesus offered wine for his last meal:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucharist

Plus, if wine and other alcoholic drinks feature throughout the Bible you'd expect there to be little opposition to the idea:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_in_the_Bible

A little off topic, but when I was studying cider making I found out a little interesting history - apples seeds are not true to the parent (I knew that). You would have to plant and grow many, many apple trees before you got a desirable eating apple. Because of this, many varieties of apple were not suitable for eating and had only one purpose - hard cider. Because of the drunkenness that came to be associated with the apple, the apple itself became a symbol of debauchery. It is thought to be for this reason that it was said that it was an apple that Adam and Eve partook of in the garden of Eden. The bible simply claims that it was fruit.

Most apple varieties in the UK are still grown for (hard) cider making. Of course, these have lost planted surface against desert and cooking apples, but there's still hundreds of varieties of cider apples out there. Juicy, acidic, full of tannins. Can't make scrumpy without some of those!