The wife and I are in Plano, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, celebrating Christmas with my brother and his family.
So, the bro and I are talking about what drinks we are going to make tonight to celebrate Christmas Eve, and I tell him about one of my favorites: a Caucasian a/k/a a White Russian, only mine comes with a twist–marshmallow flavored vodka.
As I’m describing the drink to him, my heart is leaping with Christmas joy at the thought of enjoying this very special libation with my brother.
“Do you have any marshmallow vodka?,” I ask.
“No.”
“Not a problem, there’s a Spec’s right over there,” I say.
“No, Bro, they only sell beer and wine. Collin County is a dry county,” he says.
My first thought is, “He must mean a ‘semi-dry” county.”
But setting aside my curiosity at the the kind of religious impulse that can make the razor-fine distinction between the evils of liquor versus beer and wine, I was left gawking at the utter silliness the concept of the dry county.
If you feel that drinking is wrong, don’t do it, but to impose on everyone a prohibition that has no grounding in the Bible is hardly Christian and definitely not charitable. The Apostle Paul said,
“If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourselves to decrees, such as, ‘Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!'”
Col. 2:21-22. And, I might add, “Why do you impose those decrees on others?”
I mean, if you want to keep people from doing something wrong in your county, how about a law that prohibits adultery or divorce. You can be unfaithful to your wife, or leave your husband and destroy your family, but you’ve got to go to the next county to do it.
That would make more sense than a law that keeps me from having a Caucasian on a Christmas Eve with my brother. GS