In reference to a resolution presented by Duke K. McCall (Ky.) in behalf of the Christian Life Commission, and other interested groups, we recommend the approval of the following:
WHEREAS, in its annual meeting last December an urgent call was made to the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention for a better informed and more aggressive action by the Southern Baptist Convention in its opposition to the manufacture, sale, and use of beverage alcohol, and
WHEREAS, a committee of three was appointed representing the Executive Committee, the Sunday School Board, and the Christian Life Commission to study and suggest a plan for the coordination of our forces in opposition to this nefarious traffic, and
WHEREAS, after discussion and some revision of this report, the Executive Committee recommended “that the Southern Baptist Convention at this session should speak in emphatic terms its opposition to the manufacture, sale, and use of alcoholic beverages,” and
WHEREAS, Southern Baptists have the strength in numbers, the power of wealth, and the potential in organization to cope more adequately with the flood tide of liquor, wine, and beer and their destructive influences in our land, and
WHEREAS, we believe and preach a gospel that makes men righteous and imposes on them the responsibility of righteousness in human society, and
WHEREAS, there is every evidence that the liquor forces are too well entrenched behind the barriers of legal protection and within the citadels of social usage to be conquered by impassioned denouncements, and if we are to develop and sustain an effective program looking to the ultimate destruction of this nefarious traffic in beverage alcohol, our people must be accurately informed and girded for political action in the exercise of their Christian citizenship, and
WHEREAS, the false propaganda about the use of alcohol as a beverage and the tremendous social pressure that are being put on our people of all ages have led great numbers of our people to an easy tolerance toward the use of alcohol as a beverage and seeks to remove all guilt from the alcoholic, and
WHEREAS, it is our conviction that the only solution to this problem for the individual is total abstinence and that the only solution of it in human society is total riddance;
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED:
(1) That the Southern Baptist Convention express its uneasing opposition to the manufacture, sale, and use of alcoholic beverages, and
(2) That it approve a more intensified program along the following lines:
a. To inform our people of the true nature of alcohol as a beverage and the effects of its use as a beverage on the individual and in society.
b. To provide additional materials that are attractive in appearance, adequate in quantity, and accurate in statement that will make a greater impact on our people on a national scale.
c. To encourage and promote leadership training in the field of alcohol education.
d. To cooperate with the national and state temperance leagues in encouraging our people to vote and take part in political action on temperance issues.
(3) To this end the Convention requests the Christian Life Commission to seek through the normal Convention channels ways and means to implement such a program.