OUR [SDA] ALCOHOLIC PROBLEM

" 'Between 40 anc 45 percent of male students at Adventist colleges in North America drink beer, wine, or spirits,' declared Winton Beaven, assistant to the president of the Kettering College of Medical Arts, at the first board meeting of the newly formed Institute of Alcoholism and Drug Dependency at Andrews University. 'For female students, my estimate is 20 to 25 percent,' he said.

"Beaven said that after spending much time and talking with many students, he had received adequate basis for the assertion."—Adventist Review," September 27, 1984, page 20

It can't be true. Yet it is: A major problem in alcoholic consumption and alcohol dependence is now facing nearly one-half of the cream of our Adventist young men and one-fourth of our most educated young women-those attending our colleges and universities in North America.

The problem has been steadily increasing for years, until now, in desperation at what to do, our leaders have publically admitted the immense proportions to which this terrible scourge has grown in one part of our Church: our institutions of higher education in North America.

For years the underlying causes have been ignored: We who have led out in the Church and in its homes have refused to urge and uphold the high standards given to our people in the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy. As a denomination, we have refused to strongly condemn the use of television, rock, video games, pool tables, but instead have often quietly permitted these things in our homes and in our boarding schools-our academies and colleges.

From television theatricals in our homes to motion picture theatricals in our schools and churches,-we have been giving our young people a powerful example: Worldliness is all right, my son and daughter, for you see, we who are older are enjoying it also.

But laxity in standards has brought us to the point where liquor-consumption is increasing so rapidly among our youth that we do not know how to cope with it.

Placating the problem does no good. There is no other way to solve it than to clean up our standards from top to bottom. This includes our schools, our churches and our homes. It also includes the worldly entertainment to be found across North America on Saturday nights at our conference ministerial retreats.

And now our leader, in desperation, admit the enormity of the problem. Temporizing has accomplished nothing. Now they are opening up the matter to the entire Church-for the whole thing has gotten out of hand.

Any church that lacks required standards will become corrupt. Oh, my people; please return to the Bible-Spirit of Prophecy foundations of your Church. Apart from obedience to those foundations, you have nothing to build upon and your structure cannot be lasting.

But the solution now being proposed cannot solve the problem--for it ignores the underlying causes of that problem.

Laying the axe at the root of the temperance problems in our Church is the only solution that will work. We must put away our meat-eating and our use of tea, coffee, spices and soft drinks-all lower level thirst inducers that gradually lead us toward the greater ones-tobacco, alcohol and hard drugs. (And you can know that if four-tenths of our young men are using alcohol, a lot of them are into tobacco and hard drugs also.)

Rather than urging a Church-wide reform in temperance on all levels, and leading us back to the primitive standards of our forefathers,-the Takoma Park meeting of the newly-formed General Conference subsidiary, the "Institute of Alcoholism and Drug Dependency," suggested that three committees be formed to study the problem and try to "rehabilitate" our youth who are heavily into alcoholism.

But the solution to the massive invasion of worldliness, lowered standards, intemperance, adornment and entertainment, now coming into our Church--is not simply providing more ambulances at the bottom of the cliff to carry off the casualties for therapy. The only abiding solution that can solve the problem must include the placing of fences around the top of the cliff-godly homes and churches and schools where high standards are honored, urged and expected of all.

We must say, "Here we stand: We refuse to tolerate any longer the worldliness and lowered standards in our Church. We intend that our aims and our practices shall be on a high level of Christian living. And that which we urge we shall personally practice.

The camp must be cleansed, not just given therapy.

"All accountable beings can understand it if they will. Idiots will not be responsible. "To make plain natural law and urge the obedience of it is the work that accompanies the third angel's message, to prepare a people for the coming of the Lord."—Medical Ministry, 289:2

"The conflict against this evil, which is destroying the image of God in man, must be vigorously maintained. The warfare is before us. No tame message will have influence now. God looks upon our world as revolted and corrupted, but He will send His holy angels to aid those who will engage to destroy the worship of these idols".—Letter 102a, 1897

"Press home the temperance question with all the force of the Holy Spirit's unction. Show the need of total abstinence from all intoxicating liquor. Show the terrible harm that is wrought in the human system by the use of tobacco and alcohol. Explain your methods of giving treatment. Let the talks given be such as will enlighten your hearers. God has mercy on the unrighteous. This service will be an opportunity to tell what health reform really is."—Evangelism, 534:3