So here’s my interpretation. It’s less about physical health than it is about spiritual health. Much less. This seems to be lost on many people, including priesthood leaders. We go through a temple recommend interview and answer all the questions. When we get to the question, “Do you keep the Word of Wisdom?,” we answer with a token “Yes” because we have checked off all of the right boxes: coffee, tea, tobacco, alcoholic beverages and illegal drugs.
But looking at the bigger picture, we didn’t have to say Yes or No to highly caffeinated energy drinks, which seem to be at least as addictive to some people as coffee, and on which some become dependent in order to function. We didn’t answer Yes or No to way too much junk food and sugar, too much cancer-causing meat product, or other habits or addictions that threaten our health, and ultimately our ability to serve the Lord at our best, or to be most sensitive to the promptings of the Holy Ghost.
Depending on which bishop or stake president is interviewing you, you might or might not get a temple recommend if you don’t answer the question the way they want to hear. And the questions that might really need to be asked won’t be.
You might come away disappointed if you use a few coffee granules to flavor your weight loss shake.
You might be judged as a heathen if your ward friends see you buying coffee ice cream at the supermarket.
Try showing up to a church social with a Starbucks cup with a Strawberry Frap (no caffeine in that), and be judged and criticized by someone who is having their third Monster drink of the day, who could jump start a pickup truck with their adrenaline alone. Just take the ¾ pound fatty cheeseburger they serve you at the social and go sit at the corner table in exile.
Perhaps it’s time for the checklist to go away because there seems to be so much inconsistency and room for hypocrisy with a purely linear or objective approach to the Word of Wisdom.
For some things, a checklist seems appropriate. Illegal drugs, tobacco, and drinking wine or beer all seem straightforward. There might be some rare exceptions there. Tea might have very few exceptions as well.
But coffee isn’t so easy. Coffee ice cream is flavored with real coffee, isn't it? Does that make it evil?
It certainly isn’t going to impair a person’s ability to feel the promptings of the Holy Ghost the way a couple of Rock Star drinks will.
Cooking wine is still wine. Blush wine dressing is still wine… isn’t it? So after the delicious dinner where these were used, are you suddenly unworthy of a temple recommend? It seems to depend on who you ask, or who interviews you.
Enjoy that ¾ pound cheeseburger with chile cheese fries (about 5,000 calories there, plus all the artery-clogging fat), and down it with a couple of Rock Stars. No Word of Wisdom problems so far, right? The checklist is intact… but wait, you just had some coffee ice cream for dessert. Surrender your temple recommend now, you sinner.
So here’s a scenario for you: I have a friend whom I will not identify here for privacy reasons, who is a devout member of the Church and who has a very stressful, demanding job. It requires him to work harder at times than his body has normal strength. He is physically fit like a star athlete. For years, he depended on highly caffeinated energy drinks to help keep his alertness and energy levels at their peak. This is a man who uses the companionship of the Holy Ghost to make decisions in his work that literally can mean life or death to himself or others. This is not an exaggeration. He drank the energy drinks because they were not listed as “against the word of wisdom.”
In a recent visit with his doctor, who happens to be a stake president (not his stake president, but is one elsewhere), the destructive effects of the energy drinks on my friend’s health were concerning to the doctor. Knowing the demands of the job, the doctor/stake president recommended drinking coffee instead of energy drinks, because the physical health concerns for coffee don’t compare to the energy drinks.
I want to reiterate that this man feels the influence of the Holy Ghost strongly, and it has saved his life and the lives of others in the course of his work. He is a good father and husband, mild mannered and kind, and is a great Latter-Day Saint in every way I know.
I consider him temple worthy. His use of coffee is not as an unnecessary stimulant for convenience, and it is doctor-recommended in this case.
The greater spiritual aspects of the Word of Wisdom seem to have been lost in the pharisaical, letter-of-the-law quest for checklist compliance.
The Word of Wisdom also lists those things that we should include in our diets, not just those to avoid. However, the emphasis in church culture has been on temporal prohibition, not on the spiritual opportunities that are promised. Do we want to do our best to draw closer to the Lord, or see how much we can get away with and still call ourselves worthy?
Borrowing the same line of thinking that the Lord shared in Mark 2:27, the Word of Wisdom was made for man, and not man for the Word of Wisdom.
Living the letter of the law brings compliance. Living the spirit of the law brings blessings.
Cooking wine is still wine. Blush wine dressing is still wine… isn’t it? So after the delicious dinner where these were used, are you suddenly unworthy of a temple recommend? It seems to depend on who you ask, or who interviews you.
Enjoy that ¾ pound cheeseburger with chile cheese fries (about 5,000 calories there, plus all the artery-clogging fat), and down it with a couple of Rock Stars. No Word of Wisdom problems so far, right? The checklist is intact… but wait, you just had some coffee ice cream for dessert. Surrender your temple recommend now, you sinner.
So here’s a scenario for you: I have a friend whom I will not identify here for privacy reasons, who is a devout member of the Church and who has a very stressful, demanding job. It requires him to work harder at times than his body has normal strength. He is physically fit like a star athlete. For years, he depended on highly caffeinated energy drinks to help keep his alertness and energy levels at their peak. This is a man who uses the companionship of the Holy Ghost to make decisions in his work that literally can mean life or death to himself or others. This is not an exaggeration. He drank the energy drinks because they were not listed as “against the word of wisdom.”
In a recent visit with his doctor, who happens to be a stake president (not his stake president, but is one elsewhere), the destructive effects of the energy drinks on my friend’s health were concerning to the doctor. Knowing the demands of the job, the doctor/stake president recommended drinking coffee instead of energy drinks, because the physical health concerns for coffee don’t compare to the energy drinks.
I want to reiterate that this man feels the influence of the Holy Ghost strongly, and it has saved his life and the lives of others in the course of his work. He is a good father and husband, mild mannered and kind, and is a great Latter-Day Saint in every way I know.
I consider him temple worthy. His use of coffee is not as an unnecessary stimulant for convenience, and it is doctor-recommended in this case.
The greater spiritual aspects of the Word of Wisdom seem to have been lost in the pharisaical, letter-of-the-law quest for checklist compliance.
The Word of Wisdom also lists those things that we should include in our diets, not just those to avoid. However, the emphasis in church culture has been on temporal prohibition, not on the spiritual opportunities that are promised. Do we want to do our best to draw closer to the Lord, or see how much we can get away with and still call ourselves worthy?
Borrowing the same line of thinking that the Lord shared in Mark 2:27, the Word of Wisdom was made for man, and not man for the Word of Wisdom.
Living the letter of the law brings compliance. Living the spirit of the law brings blessings.
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