No licking!
“[…] even had chocolate with Mormons […]”?
Uh. There is absolutely nothing in the Mormon Word of Wisdom that says anything about chocolate. There isn’t even anything about caffeine. The phrase used is “hot drinks”, which has been interpreted by the Mor(m)on prophets to mean specifically coffee and tea (but not herbal tea). A particularly zealous bishop or stake president might counsel against caffeine consumption, but AFAIK they aren’t going to prevent you from going to a Mormon temple if you chug a case of Red Bull and Bawls every single day.
Source: raised Mormon, was active for 25-ish years, former missionary.
former missionary.
Bit of an aside but I love fucking with (ex)-you guys. I have a stack of pamphlets from The Church of the SubGenius by my door and am well practiced in the religious dogma contained within, I turn the tables on em real quick and talk about our great guru J. R. “Bob” Dobbs as long as I can hold them while they get visibly annoyed lmao. See how they like it for a change!
Hey, I totally get it. I was a complete douchebag when I was a missionary, nearly 30 years ago, and we def. deserved a lot of the shit that we got.
I used to have a problem with jehovas witnesses waking me up regularly because I kept a night schedule. Like, every week or two, I’d be woken up in the middle of my sleep cycle by them.
Politely informed them I was solidly not religious, nor did I have any interest in religion at all.
They came back.
Asked them to remove me from their circuit.
They came back.
Started getting mildly rude, cutting them off and asking them to not knock on my door again.
They came back.
I answered the door in nothing but boxers and told them I don’t care about their zombie Jesus.
Sweet uninterrupted sleep from then on.
Worked for a company that was entirely JWs, some of the most genuinely nice people I ever met, but knowing the whole process behind the scenes and how constrictive the lifestyle is, it was always off putting.
I was never witnessed to other than just general inquiry to get to know me in passing by coworkers. But their doctrine basically states that if I’m not a JW, I’m a non-person. I don’t know how many of them believe it, but still.
They all have designated zones to do their “service” so if you refuse they’ll still come back because they believe their ticket into heaven is to convince you what they say is true.
If anyone else who reads this ever has problems with them coming to their door, best way to get them to take you off their list is say “I’ve already been excommunicated from another kingdom hall in (insert town from 2hr+ away)”
The way it was always explained to me was anything containing even a small amount of caffeine was problematic. I appreciate you correcting me on this.
TBH, this is one of the many, many things about Mormonism that makes no fucking sense at all to modern sensibilities. Some Mormons do interpret it to mean zero caffeine, but that’s not the official doctrine.
Honestly, the reason is very likely that, when Joe Smith Jr. was formulating his doctrine, there was a psuedo-science movement at the time that believed that hot beverages of any kind were bad for you. When you really start digging into the Mormon theology, it’s clear that the doctrine JS Jr. was teaching was strongly based off of new religious movements that existed in the area, at the time.
Yeah… unfortunately, confusion about this particular subject exists because members often look for the underlying justification on things and then extrapolate from there.
(I’m going to paraphrase and shorten things a lot here so we don’t have to dive into definitions and technicalities. Bear with me.)
The doctrine brought forth about this is what’s referred to as “The Word of Wisdom,” which was a short outline of what things were deemed as “harmful” or otherwise “unsuitable” for the body. The idea being that the Lord was promising to people that if they didn’t ingest these things, they would live a healthier life as a result. “Hot drinks” was mentioned and clarified a century later to mean “tea and coffee.” Furthermore, “tea” refers to black and green tea, and not necessarily herbal tea.
People, by nature, want to understand the “why” behind things. You also have people who want to understand where the line begins and ends so they can tiptoe it. Enter the rumor that since the “hot drinks” referred to “tea and coffee,” they both have not-so-insignificant amounts of caffeine in them. Obviously that must mean drinks like Coca-Cola and Pepsi, plus foods such as chocolate, must also be in violation of this, right?
Well, the issue with that is people think they’re applying “the spirit of the law” (meaning the larger picture behind it) when they’re actually applying “the word of the law” (taken at face value). The idea behind the Word of Wisdom is to take care of your body by having a balanced diet and not eating too much of a particular thing. Certain items were called out explicitly; if caffeine were the true issue, then it would’ve been called out instead. But it wasn’t, and there have been some clarifications to emphasize that caffeine itself is not the explicit reason behind it. (However the idea of “addiction” could extend to caffeine if someone were to consume large amounts of it regularly, but addiction or dependency can occur even to things like Tylenol when too much is consumed, so targeting it specifically is silly.)
So in short, it’s a mixture of misunderstanding and overzealous practice. Caffeine is perfectly fine. Just like anything else: make sure you’re not consuming too much of it.
I really cannot blame anyone for the confusion because a lot of this comes from the LDS Church itself and their often confusing clarifications of their positions. Like with caffeine specifically they have a long history of forbidding its use and then suddenly they reinterpreted it the way you’re suggesting. I’d say that’s fairly atypical for most religions nowadays and it’s a unique aspect of the LDS church that their interpretations are fluid like that.
The alternative for most other religions in the US is just that they never get specific and so most members hold conflicting views and interpretations. Both of the techniques I find very odd since you’d think that these differences would have faith based answers, but instead appear almost bureaucratic in nature
That is the apologetic version, yeah. But it begs the question: if it’s okay to drink caffeine, why is it that an occasional cup of coffee will keep you out of the temple, but a case of Red Bull every day won’t? If it’s about avoiding addiction, then surely any addiction would make you unworthy to go to the temple. If it’s hot drinks, then why isn’t cold brew coffee okay? Why is yerba mate fine, and ice tea is not? One assumes that a god would be able to formulate a standard that can be applied cleanly, to everything, and communicate that clearly to his prophet.
Honestly, the when you look at the circumstances that existed contemporaneously when JS Jr. was formulating his theology, it’s clear that the Word of Wisdom is essentially a slightly reformulated version of the temperance movement. It’s also interesting to note that it wasn’t a requirement until, IIRC, the 1920s or so; JS Jr. and Brigham Young were both pretty big drinkers of hard liquor, for instance. It’s easy to point to tobacco and say, see?, it’s prophetic! But there was a pretty strong temperance movement against tobacco at the time as well. (Meanwhile, the evidence we have right now seems to indicate that coffee and tea are probably good for you, and evidence regarding alcohol is leaning towards it probably not being healthy even in very moderate drinkers.)
