This evil in the Church and the world is the stumbling-block of iniquity over which thousands of professors are falling away from God, and tens of thousands of the masses are being plunged into endless perdition. …

When a man that was well known as among the most successful in promoting the interests of the Church, in things that appertain to its true glory, was mentioned in your official board to be the successor to your departing minister, and it was whispered, “Do you know that he is a temperance man?” what is the reason that you and your anti-temperance friends turned so quickly away from him? Not because your conscience did not whisper the truth, and tell you that temperance principles promote the interest of souls, but because you preferred the ministrations of those who, “walking in the spirit of falsehood, do lie, saying, I will prophesy to thee of wine and strong drink: he shall even be the prophet of this people” (see Micah ii. 11). Continue reading “Phoebe Palmer: Alcohol ‘This evil in the church’”

Throughout his late teens, Welch was active in the Underground Railroad that transported escaped slaves from the south into Canada. In fact, he was not the only Wesleyan Methodist connected to the “Underground Railroad.”

At age 17, Thomas Welch joined the Wesleyan Methodist Connexion, founded the same year (1843).

From its beginning, the Wesleyan Methodist Connexion strongly opposed (1) the “manufacturing, buying, selling, or using intoxicating liquors”, and (2) “slaveholding, buying, or selling” of slaves.

With the first edition of their Discipline, the Wesleyan Methodists expressly required for the Lord’s Supper that “unfermented wine only should be used at the sacrament.” This requirement was about 25 years before Welch used pasteurization. So it is clearly evident that pasteurization was not the only method used to prepare it unfermented. There were traditional methods to prepare unfermented wine (juice) for use at any time during the year, e.g. to reconstitute concentrated grape juice, or to boil raisins, or to add preservatives that prevent juice from fermenting and souring.

Thomas Welch

‘…We believe that the sale and trafficking of tobacco, alcohol and other nonmedicinal drugs is a social evil which is draining and corrupting to society, and thus we believe that the best position is to practice total abstinence, protesting both the legal and illegal trade of such substances.’

Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australia, 1997, ‘Statement on Social Issues’, National Conference Minutes, p. 104.

‘alcohol, tobacco, other harmful drugs … we deplore the industry created by the production of these substances and believe that even where these substances are legalised – total abstinence is the appropriate response. Eph. 5:15-18; Prov. 23:31-32; Prov. 31:4′
Handbook of The Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australia, 2012, 187:2

‘Only unfermented grape juice shall be used in observing the Lord’s Supper.‘
Handbook of The Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australia, 2012, 1693.

‘No alcohol is permitted during group functions as all activities are to be “dry”.’
Handbook of The Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australia, 2017, 1379, Club Solo Small Groups.

Continue reading “Total Abstinence: Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australia (2012 Handbook)”

‘We may not innocently stand by and permit the infliction of injuries by others’ ‘by forces, both moral and legal, we prevent all others from the worse than murderous traffic in liquors that can intoxicate’
—Adam Crooks, 1870, Wesleyan Methodist Church.

If Orange Scott can be called the founder of the Wesleyan Methodist Connection, Adam Crooks would have to be named its perpetrator.

Lee M. Haines & Paul W. Thomas, 1990, An Outline History of the Wesleyan Church, Wesley Press, Indianapolis, p. 74.

“Now that the Heaven-insulting and Manvictimizing crime of chattel slavery has been abolished in this Country, the patriot, philanthropist and Christian can bestow more exclusive attention upon the soul-and-body-destroying evil of the rum-traffic. Human duty is one of the greatest thoughts that can occupy human attention. And duty respecting the temperance movement is well worthy the most candid and careful consideration. Continue reading “Duty to denounce alcohol: ‘by forces, both moral and legal’, Adam Crooks, Wesleyan Methodist Church, 1870”