LDS and the Word of Wisdom

[Marie5890]

Interesting. So the Temple Recommend holders that I saw drinking iced tea, or decaffeinated hot tea were violating the Word of Wisdom, even it if was in ignorance.

I’m not going to be the one to tell them tho!

Could be.

I was always taught that herbal teas were fine…but not regular tea…

And I lived in Provo for over 12 years…regular coke and all other caffeinated soft drinks were readily available in the stores, resturaunts, and convient stores (7-11 types) drank by most I knew

(though you could not find the caffeinated versions on BYU campus but their alternate decaffeinated was also readily available there)…

For the 12 years I lived there right on the edge of campus, caffeinated soft drinks were never an issue with any BYU bishop or stake president I had…ever…nor was it ever brought up in any recommend interview…ever…

(time frame '82-'96)

 

[Catherine_D]

Could be.

I was always taught that herbal teas were fine…but not regular tea…

And I lived in Provo for over 12 years…regular coke and all other caffeinated soft drinks were readily available in the stores, resturaunts, and convient stores (7-11 types) drank by most I knew

(though you could not find the caffeinated versions on BYU campus but their alternate decaffeinated was also readily available there)…

For the 12 years I lived there right on the edge of campus, caffeinated soft drinks were never an issue with any BYU bishop or stake president I had…ever…nor was it ever brought up in any recommend interview…ever…

(time frame '82-'96)

I guess the “caffeine thing” is just someone’s interpretation. But it’s a lot of someones!

 

[Marie5890]

I guess the “caffeine thing” is just someone’s interpretation. But it’s a lot of someones!

Exactly.

If you read the post that actually posts the DC on the WoW you will see that caffeine is not mentioned.

“Hot drinks” is.
Don’t remember which LDS prophet is was but one of the defined “hot drinks” as coffee and tea.

Caffeine is never mentioned. Over the years people have interpreted the “coffee and tea” definition as meaning caffeine. That was never the case.

Hope that helps.

 

[dianaiad]

Why abstain from “hot drinks” and alcohol and tobacco? And why isn’t moderation in intake of meat practiced?

Simply put, the Word of Wisdom (the whole of it) was given as health advice. We SHOULD be abiding by it for our health’s sake.

The parts that we are known for, that is, equating ‘hot drinks’ with coffee and tea, and abstaining from tobacco and alcohol, happened quite a bit later, as a slightly separate issue; we abstain from those things because we promised to do so.

That’s pretty much it.

It’s a little like…someone giving up smoking for Lent. The principle is somewhat similar.

 

[Sam_777]

dianaiad,

I totally agree with LDS on the tobacco and alcohol parts but what’s with “hot drinks” what is wrong with drinking a hot chocolate or a hot green tea

 

[LongJourney]

Sam:

I think it is just a way of telling others that they are superior. If they would follow the essence of the rest, it would be more humbling.

Caffeine, meat, minimally processed foods, and alcohol are good in moderation. Would be better to practice moderation in all those. But, no, it is an absolute on just some.

 

[PaulDupre]

The WoW statement about hot drinks came from the popular medical notions of the time. The book Colon Hygiene: Comprising New and Important Facts Concerning the Physiology of the Colon, by John Harvey Kellogg (of Corn Flakes and The Road to Wellville fame) stated in 1915:

Hot Food and Drinks

The practice of eating food as hot as it can be swallowed, and especially of taking hot drinks at meals, is unquestionably a very active cause of constipation…

Priessnitz, the sagacious peasant doctor of water cure fame, noted the unwholesome effects of hot foods more than a century ago 1815, well before the WoW]. By experiments upon pigs he demonstrated that hot food produced an unhealthy state in the intestine. He according recommended that his patients take their food at the natural temperature of the air, and the thousands coming from every part of the civilized world who annually ate at his table in the little village of Graeffenburg, hidden among the forests of Austrian Silesia, testified to his success in the treatment of chronic constipation and numerous other ills which were at that time acknowleged as incurable even by the best physicians.

Hot foods and drinks produce a sensation of comfort in the stomach directly after they are swallowed. In certain forms of indigestion this effect is particularly noticable. In these cases, however, temporary comfort is obtained only at the expense of the later serious disadvantages of the constipating effects of such a diet.

• Colon Hygiene: Comprising New and Important Facts Concerning the Physiology of the Colon, by John Harvey Kellogg, pp 97-98

This kind of “health science” was all the rage during the early-middle 19th century and rode the coat-tails of the then-powerful temperance movement (anti-alcohol). Emma Smith was a firm believer in it. LDS church history acknowledges that Emma Smith was the impetus behind the Word of Wisdom. I believe that D&C 89 was Joseph’s “pay-off” to Emma in exchange for her capitulation on Joseph’s sexual dalliances.

The LDS have tried to justify the “hot drinks” proscription ever since.

Paul

 

[dianaiad]

LDS teens and young adults have been known to indulge in “wild partying” too. Growing up, my children had numerous LDS friends and classmates and some of these were just as active at the parties as any of the kids. So being LDS is no guarantee of teenage sobriety!

I think the thing that has always bothered me is the public v. private practices of some Mormons. Back when I was growing up, I knew that Mormons didn’t drink coffee or tea, but the Mormons I knew also didn’t drink any soda with caffeine in it, so coke and pepsi were “out” too.

Today, I’ve noticed that when Mormons gather for a group function, there will be orange soda, root beer, punch ~ basically all manner of non-caffeinated sodas and drinks. But privately, they’ll be drinking Mountain Dew (the highest caffeine soda besides Jolt last time I checked) or Diet Coke ~ haven’t tried to compare them to “energy drinks” . Another example ~ I know one Mormon Stake President that goes through quite a number of Diet Cokes every day (I submit an unhealthy number, but that’s more because of the chemicals used to sweeten it, which I consider deadly.)

In conclusion, I think it is odd that some would choose one way of living in public and another in private.

I drink my diet coke quite publicly, thank you. While you might be right about the unhealthy aspects of it (or not…) the point is, it’s not about the caffeine. It’s never BEEN about the caffeine.

It’s about the promise. We promised not to drink coffee, tea or alcohol, nor use tobacco. We SHOULD, for our health’s sake, follow the rest of the WoW. Many people, figuring that the ‘reason’ we abstain from coffee and tea must be what’s IN them, zoom in on the caffeine and refrain from that. They are probably wise…but trust me, I could pack my diet coke into the Temple with me and drink it right there in the cafeteria, and I wouldn’t get kicked out.

I’d get looked at funny, but not kicked out.

 

[dianaiad]

Yes, hypocrisy certainly can be found in any faith tradition, no doubt about it.

The whole “caffeine thing”…LDS church never officially equated “hot drinks” with caffiene…that was one of those things that many Mormons did privately.

(Sorta like how ancient Jews expanded upon their dietary laws beyond that that was prescribed by the Torah to avoid even the possibility of breaking the dietary laws)

Never when I went for my TR was I ever asked if I drank coke or any other caffienated drinks etc…Just “do you live the WoW”

Precisely, Marie, and thank you.

 

[dianaiad]

Interesting. So the Temple Recommend holders that I saw drinking iced tea, or decaffeinated hot tea were violating the Word of Wisdom, even it if was in ignorance.

I’m not going to be the one to tell them tho!

Actually, they were. They honestly might not believe they were, though…and it does depend upon the tea.

 

[dianaiad]

Exactly.

If you read the post that actually posts the DC on the WoW you will see that caffeine is not mentioned.

“Hot drinks” is.
Don’t remember which LDS prophet is was but one of the defined “hot drinks” as coffee and tea.

Caffeine is never mentioned. Over the years people have interpreted the “coffee and tea” definition as meaning caffeine. That was never the case.

Hope that helps.

Exactly right, Marie, and the definition of ‘hot drinks’ being coffee and tea was finalized by Brigham Young.

 

[dianaiad]

dianaiad,

I totally agree with LDS on the tobacco and alcohol parts but what’s with “hot drinks” what is wrong with drinking a hot chocolate or a hot green tea

Nothing at all wrong with hot chocolate. The green tea…that’s out.
Green tea comes from the same plant that the black tea comes from; the difference is in preparation, not source. Teas from OTHER herbs are OK, though.

It’s a religion, Sam. Why DOES a Catholic abstain from something for Lent that is absolutely fine the rest of the year? Does the science about that thing change during the time he abstains, so that it is suddenly physically bad for him then when it is healthy the rest of the year?

Does he expect his abstainance to make sense to a non-believer?

Well, it’s the same sort of thing with us. We abstain from these things because we promised to abstain from them, and it has little to do with what good or harm they actually, physically, can do to our bodies, except that at the time we first made those promises, we were one of the few groups that thought any of those things were unhealthy and not just…untidy or uncouth.

 

[LongJourney]

we were one of the few groups that thought any of those things were unhealthy and not just…untidy or uncouth.

Yechoids. Drunks, stale beer and tobacco juice all over the sidewalk. uch:

 

[RebeccaJ]

It’s a religion, Sam. Why DOES a Catholic abstain from something for Lent that is absolutely fine the rest of the year? Does the science about that thing change during the time he abstains, so that it is suddenly physically bad for him then when it is healthy the rest of the year?

Lent has never been defined as a “health law”. So I don’t get the comparison to it.

 

[dianaiad]

Yechoids. Drunks, stale beer and tobacco juice all over the sidewalk. uch:

That, and doctors were actually PRESCIBING smoking for lung ailments at the time.

 

[Marie5890]

Precisely, Marie, and thank you.

You’re welcome.
When my own personal faith journey ended up diverging with Mormonism I knew that one of the greatest blessing that came with me was the wisdom and disciple I had gained due to the WoW.

It’s one of the best fruits.

 

[Sam_777]

It’s a religion, Sam.

Well, it’s the same sort of thing with us. We abstain from these things because we promised to abstain from them,

dianaiad, you have mentioned that you as “LDS” abstain from hot drinks because it’s a religious thing.
Okay, show me the reference for that in the Bible.

 

[dianaiad]

dianaiad, you have mentioned that you as “LDS” abstain from hot drinks because it’s a religious thing.
Okay, show me the reference for that in the Bible.

Are you a biblical innerrantist, then?

Well, I can’t show you the 'reference for that in the bible," because the Word of Wisdom isn’t in the bible. It’s in the Doctrine and Covenants. However, I can show you the reference for making religious promises and keeping them in there. Lessee…there’s the OT prohibition of eating pork or certain seafood in the wrong season; very similar, actually. There’s the promise that the slaves in Israel made to smear the blood of a lamb on their doors so that the angel of death would pass by them. In NT times, it’s found in the story of Ananias…remember him? He and his wife promised to sell everything they had and to give it to the community (they were living in what we now call a religious commune, in which all people held all things together). Annanias held back some of the proceeds from the sale of his property, and because he lied, he died.

The keeping of promises is referred to there.

I don’t know exactly what faith tradition you follow; what brand of Christian you are, but I am willing to guarantee that there are one or two things you do as part of that faith tradition that you won’t be able to find reference to in the bible, except in the way I just did.

But then, I’m not a biblical innerrentist…and neither are Catholics. If you are, that’s going to cause a conversational disconnect, I’m afraid, until we get the meanings all hashed out and agreed upon.

 

[Sam_777]

**dianaiad, **

what do you make of this:

“Nevertheless, contemporary records indicate that Joseph Smith, Jr. was not, himself, a strict observer. Smith is recorded at various times as drinking tea, beer, and wine. There is a report he also smoked tobacco: according to Amasa Lyman, a member of the First Presidency under Smith, Smith once finished preaching a sermon on the Word of Wisdom and immediately afterward rode through the streets smoking a cigar.”
Source.

He is no different than Muhammed who allowed polygamy of 4 wives yet he took for himself 13 wives…

 

[LongJourney]

Although there are many similarities between Mormonism and Islam, there is one chief difference: Islam is fiercely monotheistic, while Mormonism allows for many gods, and even the Trinity is polytheistic. Both believe that worthy men can practice polygamy in heaven. Christianity believes that there is no sexuality in heaven.

The WoW recommends restriction of meat intake, except in wintertime and times of famine. However, LDS choose to ignore this aspect of the WoW. Muslims, however, prohibit the eating of pork, and this is rigorously followed. LDS rigorously avoid the use of alcohol, but Muslims in Western society often see nothing wrong with having a drink now and then. Another major similarity is that use of violence to defend the faith is encouraged in certain circumstances, and these are core doctrines.

One might wonder if Smith & Co. copied their religion after what they knew of Islam, making one VERY serious error.

Sam, could you fact-check these observations for me?