I remember one sermon in particular. The pastor proclaimed that the per capita consumption of beer in Wisconsin for every man, woman and child was 20 gallons per year. He stated that equaled 4,000,000 gallons or about 125,000 barrels. (Wisconsin must have had about 2,000,000 people in those days based on those figures.) The state taxed every barrel (32 gallons) a $1 and made money, as did the breweries and the bars so the guilt trip was laid and he reasoned people should dig deeper when the collection plate came around. Of course, all of this got me distracted as I tried to listen and do that math in my head to see if he was correct. As I analyzed this I found
1. We had been to a wedding dance the night before, the same wedding dance everybody in that small country church had been at and the beer was free. It flowed freely.
2. I was 10 and only had an occasional schluck(German word of small sip) from a dad's very occasional bottle of beer. So now the question of condemnation to hell was tugging at my young mind as our pastor spoke on.
3. We had a big church picnic a few weeks earlier and beer had been for sale at that event
Almost everyone in church that day was of good old German Lutheran stock and they all knew where this was leading, the old annual put your beer money in the collection plate sermon.
Later, we had Sunday dinner at my grandparent’s house and the subject of the sermon came up. My dad put in his two cents worth saying basically, “beer and church just don’t mix, that kind of subject in a sermon is not going to get you to open up your wallet and doesn’t make me want to put more money in the collection plate, especially on what I make!”
My grandfather chimed in,” Ach ya, without beer, our ancestors would have died from all the bad water. Na ya that subject in church is not good. Don’t we have beer at the church picnic to raise money? It’s like politics, keep those things out of the pulpit.”
Too which my uncle Arnold added, “Amen! Boy’s go down in the basement and get some beer for after dinner.”
What struck me was that my grandfather saw this as “Keep it out of the pulpit”.
I took that to heart and today believe like he did. The separation of church and state as our founders put forth is a freedom that guarantees religious beliefs as one see fit. Politics doesn’t belong in church.
So as we approach the 2012 elections, let freedom ring and lets keep the subject of politics out of the pulpit. Prayers for the Green Bay Packers are just fine as far as I am concerned.
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