**WARNING: This video clip contains illustrations of extremely graphic violence perpetrated against infants.**
I’d like to see a show of hands of who here has ever been drunk. Now, if you’re somebody who has also killed somebody with a butcher knife while drunk keep your hand up. Anybody? Anybody at all?
This guy is a psycho, I was exposed to him as a child. I lived in NJ, but we were actually bussed down to NC because I guess our church/pastor thought this guy was so great that we couldn’t find this level of lunacy in NJ. He was probably right. This guy just makes up so many stories it’s ridiculous. And the wild screaming in his preaching (didn’t listen to this whole video, but I’m sure it’s there) is just embarrassing to watch. I got a few weeks in the summer of this guy and a couple special weekends, but there are kids who grew up in this guys church. It makes me so sad, because our church in NJ was the type that gets spewed out of God’s mouth. The type of pew pounding, running around screaming crap that Castle pulled off with his crew was something our Pastor was always trying to get off the ground, but it just never happened.
What is his name and where is he now?
His name is Danny Castle, and last I heard he moved to another church in NC. If you google his name you’ll find him.
Thank you! Blessings.
In my IFB church (of which I was a deacon at the time) I was rereading the Church Constitution.
Now the Church Constitution had not bothered me when we joined. But over the years I had been noting problems with consistency. And when I read the part in the Constitution requiring complete abstinence from alcohol, I decided to talk to another deacon about it.
I asked him about the passage. He was aware of it. I said that the Scripture did not forbid drinking. He started off trying to say that their wine was grape juice. I put that one to rest pretty quickly. When Jesus made wine, it was the good stuff. People do not get happy off grape juice.
I took him to Deuteronomy 14:26 and its context, using tithe money to feast and get happy before the Lord with alcohol.
It was a verse he did not appreciate. He objected that we are commanded not to get drunk. And I agreed with him. But the Bible clearly allows drinking alcohol. So why did our church have a prohibition on it?
Well, you have to draw the line somewhere, he protested.
But couldn’t we draw the line where Scripture draws it? At getting drunk? I asked. He said no, that the only way to keep from getting drunk was to not drink.
I then pointed out that his solution was the essence of Pharisaical theology. Find the line that Scripture draws, and draw one tighter, so that you are more spiritual than the Scripture. Jesus condemned that approach, “teaching for doctrines the commandments of men,” and said that it led them to miss the point of the Scripture altogether.
Of course it did not change his mind, and he was not happy with me.
But it opened my eyes a bit wider at that time to the problems in Fundamentalism.
The ol’ “draw the line somewhere” trick.
How much longer did you deacon after that? I can’t imagine they’d keep you long.
I don’t remember how long it was until I was no longer a deacon. It wasn’t too long.
I’d had to file for bankruptcy. Medical debt had pretty much ruined us financially. The Mog and other deacons had me stand before the church while my resignation was announced. It was stated more like “taking some time off the deacon board to attend to some issues”, but it was a public shaming nonetheless.
And I took it.
I wish I hadn’t.
The Pastor said that bankruptcy showed a problem with handling finances, and that people might think I would steal from the church. I asked him how medical debt — my heart attack, a son’s surgery, etc. — meant I’d had a problem handling finances.
It didn’t matter. Rules were rules.
It still took a couple of years before I left the church for good.
Dear rtgmath:
I’m astonished that you engaged your friend so long! You’re VERY good!
Years ago, I came across a book with a title that itself was worth the price of the book; it was Mark Coleman’s ‘The Pharisee’s Guide to Total Holiness.’ And it is a hoot!
Coleman describes the very process you do. Lest someone violate God’s law, we put up a hedge around the law. So long as you respect the hedge, you won’t break the law. But if someone does violate the hedge, they are in danger of sin. Better back up and make another hedge to protect that hedge that violates God’s law. And the same with that hedge as well.
In time, people are no longer discussing core issues of obedience and God’s law at all. Instead, they are checking to see that everyone has and is observing all the right hedges — called ‘stands’.
Blessings!
Christian Socialist
From the age of 14 to 18, I drank any and every type of alcoholic beverage I could get my hands on (a surprisingly huge amount).
From the age of 16 to 18, I smoked as much pot as I could get my hands on. I even tried to sell it, but turned out tho be a terrible salesman, so I just smoked it all up.
At age 18, I gave all that up for my relationship with Christ. For the longest time, I believed that drinking any type of alcoholic beverage was a sin.
Putting aside Greek and Hebrew etymologies (which I have studied) of the words translated as wine, strong drink, etc… in scripture, I have to say that the qualifications of the bishop and deacon in I Timothy 3 just don’t make sense if you believe wine had to be grape juice. Why would it be wrong for a bishop to be “given to [grape juice]” or a deacon to be “given to much [grape juice]”? For that matter why is a bishop forbidden from being given to wine and a deacon to much wine? The only thing that makes sense is that a deacon had better be careful about overly indulging, and a bishop had better not ever over indulge at all. I don’t see how this could rule out consumption of any alcoholic beverage ever for any reason or occasion. And the verse in Ephesians 5 says, “Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess,” could just have easily said, “Drink no wine,” if that were the original intent of the Author. Maybe the excess is that, in order to be drunk with wine, you have to drink an excessive amount, so stick with Jim Beam… it takes much less to produce the desired effect (just kidding, of choose).
Also the verse in Proverbs that says to give grape juice to him that had a heavy heart, just wouldn’t make sense either.
And no amount of grape juice could have induced Lot to commit invest with his daughters and not remember it the next day.
I have come to the conclusion that logic requires me to believe that moderate drinking may not be a sin.
If a person can do it with a clear conscience, it is really between him and God (“Hast thou faith? Have it to thyself. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth”–Romans 14:22).
I am one of the few baptists I know that actually believes in soul liberty! Ultimately, this preacher will stand before God and give account of himself; so, too will every tee-totaler, social drinker, and drunkard. It matters little what mortals think about our rightness or wrongness on this matter (and many others). “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly before thy God!”
Truly, the Bible’s references to wine should really be taken into historical context. People just did not drink water the way they do today. Water carried diseases. Water could be deadly. Wine, otoh, was a safe beverage. Heck, even during the Middle Ages people drank wine and beer as a regular beverage while avoiding water.
It’s utter nonsense when people try to claim that what they drank in the Bible days was grape juice. It may’ve been a wine that was fairly dilute compared to what we have today, but it was still wine. http://www.beekmanwine.com/prevtopx.htm
Dear Persnickety Polecat:
Once again, this would be so much easier had Jesus turned wine into water.
Christian Socialist
Dear Just Baptist:
This actually happened at the examination of a ministerial candidate.
Examiner: `How much wine can your elder drink?´
Candidate: `I don`t know; I´ve never seen him really tie one on.´
I can assure you that said question was used a NO theological examination that I have conducted.
Christian Socialist
The Ken Burns documentary on Prohibition teases out the American Protestant bias toward teetotalism into its separate strands. On one hand you have well-documented accounts of the misery inflicted by violent alcoholics, usually male, on women and children who had no legal protection. On the other you have rapid growth of urban populations that were (a) mostly not Protestant, (b) mostly not from English speaking countries, (c) city folks, and also (d) hooked into a social network that ran itself mostly from male-dominated saloons. In between there were lots of other social movements that all got snarled up in Prohibition.
And now we have IFB preachers still trying to enforce it long after the rest of the country realized that it was bad for American moral fiber. 🙄
Is this the Danny Castle that used to make singing tapes with his wife, daughter, and a piano? He used to go to KJB Jubilee back in the late 80’s? I grew up and still have a few of his tapes if he is the same guy. Oh, the memories.
Drinking Jaegermeister? Yeah, I call freak of nature. *shudder* 😉 Echte Johannisberger, however…..
Maybe not even Gletschereis. Although that’s debatable.
Bitte ein Bit!
Question #1: hand up
Question #2: hand down
If anyone is interested and happens to like history, you might consider reading about the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. It was motivated primarily by women being sick and tired of being abused and seeing their children go hungry due to the husband’s/father’s drinking. I was surprised to read a positive plug for the movement granted by the modern women’s rights movement despite religious differences. In the 1800’s, in some areas such as Southern Missouri, people avoided going to town on certain days due to drunkards shooting their guns in the air and accosting people. I have worked in health care for decades and seen repeatedly first hand the devastation caused by alcohol on all levels. I was raised without alcohol in my environment for which I am grateful. Although I have tasted alcohol on rare occasion I choose to avoid it. As a responsible person I feel it wrong to risk being impaired and then be needed to act in an emergency or be needed to drive a vehicle, and you don’t have to be full blown drunk to be impaired. That’s just me. My mother always told me that when there is a “gray area” about a practice, there is nothing important to lose by avoiding it. She would quote the verse “abstain from all appearance of evil”. And then there is the matter of “causing your brother to stumble” by doing something that might be safe for you but not for him. I’m tired of people whining about this whole thing. I think it is based more on “I want to do it and I’m gonna vilify anyone who says I can’t”. If we’ve outgrown legalistic fundamentalism, that’s great, but maybe it’s time to grow up and start showing a level of responsibility and compassion that is more often seen in apostate churches, the reason for which is beyond me. If we are Christians, I think maybe we should read the teachings of Christ and the apostles and do them and as Joyce Meyer says “get your mind off yourself and yourself off your mind”. It’s not rocket science.
Using the weaker brother argument isn’t going to get far with me because there’s always someone who’ll be offended by something. I can go to my local CVS and either buy cigarettes or aspirin. Does that mean I shouldn’t go to CVS because someone might think I’m buying cigarettes? If my brother comes in to visit me from Europe I can’t hug him publicly because someone might think I’m cheating on my husband? There are so many ridiculous restrictions on behavior from this line of thinking if you keep going with it. It’s this insanity that made me leave Fundystan. There may be nothing to lose by abstaining, but there’s not necessarily something to gain by abstaining either. Why not let our moderation be known unto all, instead of our rules? I’d much rather be with a Christian who is loving and gracious and has a beer once in a while than with a resident of Fundystan who is too busy checking the boxes on the “How to be Righteous” list to help me when I’m in need.
The way I read it, the one who does not imbibe would think that the one who does is the weaker brother, while the one who imbibes would think the one who does not is the weaker brother.
In fact, one cannot admit to being the weaker brother without also admitting that their objections to a brother’s liberty is an indication of their lack of faith.
Once I read, “Joyce Meyer,” my brain turned to mush.
Now, what was that again?
😯
Do you have a predjuidice against Joyce Meyer?
As with most televangelists, my perceptions are not preconceived opinion not based on reason or actual experience. Therefore, I don’t believe I was being prejudiced. Rather, I was simply communicating my physical response.
I could say more, but that would be entirely off topic. Not that I’ve not been off topic a time or two!
B.R.O.
As an avid (though amateur) student of history myself, I understate and appreciate the goals of the Temperance Movement. I personally do not drink and am not interested in drinking.
You mentioned that “if we are Christians, … we should read the teachings of Christ and the apostles and do them.” Paul wrote in Colossians 2:16, “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink” which would seem to indicate that Christians are free to drink (though not to be drunk as the Bible clearly states many times). Later in the same passage, he says, “Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, (touch not; taste not; handle not; which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?” Paul specifically mentions “taste not,” which could certainly apply to wine.
While I believe there can be great wisdom in choosing to abstain from alcoholic beverages, I also believe that it is absolutely wrong for a believer to condemn another believer who does not abstain.
Jesus drank. Jesus was accused of being an alcoholic (or drunkard). Jesus turned water into wine after the wedding guests were drunk so that they could drink more. Maybe Jesus could have been more circumspect. I’m glad he did it though.