{"id":5196,"date":"2023-01-10T15:00:58","date_gmt":"2023-01-10T20:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=5196"},"modified":"2023-01-10T15:00:58","modified_gmt":"2023-01-10T20:00:58","slug":"poll-finds-that-weekly-churchgoers-are-split-on-alcohol-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/01\/poll-finds-that-weekly-churchgoers-are-split-on-alcohol-use.html","title":{"rendered":"Poll Finds That Weekly Churchgoers Are Split on Alcohol Use"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Shutterstock.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Gallup recently released its latest\u00a0<\/span>survey<\/span><\/a>\u00a0on American alcohol use and found that about 63 percent of Americans aged 18 and up say they drink alcohol. That number ticked up to 65 percent when asked to Americans of legal drinking age, from 21 years old and up. Thirty-six percent of those surveyed identified themselves as \u201ctotal abstainers.\u201d The number has stayed fairly near to 63 percent since Gallup began the survey in 1939. The percentage of drinkers increased with financial means, with 80 percent of those making over $100,000 saying they drink, whereas only 49 percent of those making less than $40,000 say they drink.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Weekly churchgoers made the smallest share of drinkers, with only 50 percent stating they drink compared to the average 63 percent. Church attendance also appeared to impact the number who drank, with 69 percent of non-adherents saying they drink. Sixty-three percent of those who attended church less frequently stated they drank as well. There were some minor differences between denominations, with 60 percent of Protestants saying they drank compared to 68 percent of Catholics.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The survey highlights the split among Christians\u2019 understanding of the Bible\u2019s stance on alcohol. Proverbs 20:1 states, \u201cWine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.\u201d The Bible is also very clear about the sinfulness of drunkenness, with Ephesians 5:18 saying, \u201cAnd be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit,\u201d and Romans 13:13 saying, \u201cLet us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying.\u201d Social drinking, however, such as the survey looks at, has a much broader range of views.<\/span><\/p>\n

A 2017 Lifeway Research <\/span>poll<\/span><\/a>\u00a0found that 41 percent of Protestants stated they drink while 59 percent said they did not. The survey found that 87 percent of respondents agreed that Scripture prohibits drunkenness. However, only 23 percent agreed with the statement, \u201cScripture indicates that people should never drink alcohol,\u201d while 71 percent disagreed. Six percent were unsure. Fifty-five percent agreed that all beverages, including alcohol, can be consumed without sin. The number of Christians who believed Scripture indicates total abstaining from alcohol shrank six points from a 2007 Lifeway poll. Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research, stated the data indicates that even though few Christians believe the Bible completely prohibits alcohol, many still choose to abstain. \u201cChurchgoers\u2019 perspectives on alcohol are not changing very fast. The majority believe that biblically they can drink, but they choose not to,\u201d he said. The popular \u201c<\/span>Got Questions<\/span><\/a>\u201d site for Christians summed up the issue in their survey of the Bible\u2019s stance on alcohol, writing, \u201cAlcohol, consumed in small quantities, is neither harmful nor addictive. In fact, some doctors advocate drinking small amounts of red wine for its health benefits, especially for the heart. Consumption of small quantities of alcohol is a matter of Christian freedom. Drunkenness and addiction are sins. However, due to the biblical concerns regarding alcohol and its effects, due to the easy temptation to consume alcohol in excess, and due to the possibility of causing offense and\/or stumbling of others, it is often best for a Christian to abstain from drinking alcohol.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gallup recently released its latest\u00a0survey\u00a0on American alcohol use and found that about 63 percent of Americans aged 18 and up say they drink alcohol. That number ticked up to 65 percent when asked to Americans of legal drinking age, from 21 years old and up. Thirty-six percent of those surveyed identified themselves as \u201ctotal abstainers.\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":5199,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nPoll Finds That Weekly Churchgoers Are Split on Alcohol Use<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"New survey reveals that regular churchgoers have split opinions on alcohol use.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Poll Finds That Weekly Churchgoers Are Split on Alcohol Use\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"New survey reveals that regular churchgoers have split opinions on alcohol use.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/01\/poll-finds-that-weekly-churchgoers-are-split-on-alcohol-use.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Christ News Today\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-01-10T20:00:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2023\/01\/Alcohol-2.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"577\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cecilia Buchanan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Poll Finds That Weekly Churchgoers Are Split on Alcohol Use","description":"New survey reveals that regular churchgoers have split opinions on alcohol use.","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Poll Finds That Weekly Churchgoers Are Split on Alcohol Use","og_description":"New survey reveals that regular churchgoers have split opinions on alcohol use.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/01\/poll-finds-that-weekly-churchgoers-are-split-on-alcohol-use.html","og_site_name":"Christ News Today","article_published_time":"2023-01-10T20:00:58+00:00","og_image":[{"width":768,"height":577,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2023\/01\/Alcohol-2.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Cecilia Buchanan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/01\/poll-finds-that-weekly-churchgoers-are-split-on-alcohol-use.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/01\/poll-finds-that-weekly-churchgoers-are-split-on-alcohol-use.html","name":"Poll Finds That Weekly Churchgoers Are Split on Alcohol Use","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/01\/poll-finds-that-weekly-churchgoers-are-split-on-alcohol-use.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/01\/poll-finds-that-weekly-churchgoers-are-split-on-alcohol-use.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2023\/01\/Alcohol-2.png","datePublished":"2023-01-10T20:00:58+00:00","dateModified":"2023-01-10T20:00:58+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#\/schema\/person\/77cb6eeb5c74ee0eb8c77ea1ebc43c6a"},"description":"New survey reveals that regular churchgoers have split opinions on alcohol use.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/01\/poll-finds-that-weekly-churchgoers-are-split-on-alcohol-use.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/01\/poll-finds-that-weekly-churchgoers-are-split-on-alcohol-use.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/01\/poll-finds-that-weekly-churchgoers-are-split-on-alcohol-use.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2023\/01\/Alcohol-2.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2023\/01\/Alcohol-2.png","width":768,"height":577,"caption":"Shutterstock.com"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/01\/poll-finds-that-weekly-churchgoers-are-split-on-alcohol-use.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Poll Finds That Weekly Churchgoers Are Split on Alcohol Use"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/","name":"Christ News Today","description":"Christian News From Around the Globe","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#\/schema\/person\/77cb6eeb5c74ee0eb8c77ea1ebc43c6a","name":"Leigh Pizzutilla","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/author\/lpizzutilla"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/664"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5196"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5205,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5196\/revisions\/5205"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}