Last night the wife and I went to a Michael W Smith Christmas concert. It was at an old renovated theater, and like many concerts or plays these days the management of the theater came out to do their spiel about sponsorship. Specifically, they mentioned their lead sponsors that have helped renovate the theater and support its ongoing operation: Wal-Mart, a local bank, a few others, and a liquor store. After each of the mentions, there was applause, but as you might imagine a little bit less applause when it came to the liquor store. But it was there nonetheless, as well as a few other sponsors in the program that were beer distributorships or something similar. Then, of course, there were the concessions in the lobby that included an open bar selling wine and beer.
At first my thought was, these people don't really know their audience. But on second thought, it makes me think that it wasn't that unusual. While Christians over the last century and a half have often been thought of as non-drinkers, that thought is often changing. In addition many people at this concert, located firmly outside the Bible belt in a more Catholic/Lutheran/Methodist culture, were likely of the non-evangelical variety, in which beer and wine are as firmly embedded in the culture of the church as outside of it.
It's an interesting place that Christians are often put in today...how do we react when some of the social mores are changing around us? I have to think that a few of the concertgoers last night might have been deeply offended at the reference to alcohol, but many more were not. I wasn't offended, but I was surprised. I'm still of the old, southern evangelical variety in which alcohol is usually seen as a vice. I don't necessarily see alcohol as inherently a sin, but I still think it's a bad idea for quite a few reasons. But while many Christians have 'stood firm' on some issues, this seems to be one in which the cultural landscape for the church is in the middle of a shift.
