Leadership, Part 3

The Christian Temperance Union was highly intemperate. As C.S. Lewis has rightly pointed out, to be temperate means “going the right length and no further.” The Temperance Union when far beyond the dictates of Scripture, defining temperance as abstaining. The Apostle Paul explained a Christian leader is “not given to drunkenness.” He did not say, “not given to drink.” In fact, he even advised his spiritual son, Timothy, to “use a little wine” for his frequent illnesses.

But temperance is not just about drinking alcohol. We turned down my dad’s offer to pay for satellite T.V. because I would probably become intemperate in watching televised sports -- especially in the winter. Must I abstain from watching televised sports to avoid sin? Not if the watching is kept within proper bounds. A person who is spiritually mature can enjoy God’s good gifts without letting them control him. But if televised sports controls my mind or hinders my studies or distracts me from fathering, then I am being intemperate. A person can be intemperate in innumerable ways: “A man who makes his golf or his [motorcycle] the centre of his life or a woman who devotes all her thought to clothes or bridge or her dog, is being just as “intemperate” as someone who gets drunk every evening.”

Though some addictions -- addicts are created by intemperance -- are judged more leniently by Christians, God isn’t fooled: “[Drunkenness] does not show on the outside so easily; bridge-mania or golf-mania do not make you fall down in the middle of the road. But God isn’t deceived by externals.”