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Dear
Gramps, Another Word of Wisdom question. I was bothered by the suggestion
that the member in question “had the right Spirit” when she is obviously
placing herself as a judge over others. My question is “Where can we draw
the line on things like de-caf and herbal tea?
(Both of which I would have considered okay by the Church.) In Japan,
green tea, for example, is considered a health drink and members are
commonly ridiculed when we refuse to drink it for “health reasons.”
Dale, from Japan |
Dear
Dale,
Not
only are people who abstain from tea ridiculed in Japan, but in England also, as
it is a deeply ingrained national drink for the English.
As
for me, I avoid de-caf like I would any other coffee, because I understand that
coffee is against the Word of Wisdom. I don’t need to analyze it for its
ingredients in an attempt to justify an exception. However, herbal teas are not
against the Word of Wisdom. In fact, herbal medicine was practiced by the people
in Book of Mormon times, i.e.,
And
there were some who died with fevers, which at some seasons of the year were
very frequent in the land--but not so much so with fevers, because of the
excellent qualities of the many plants and roots which God had prepared to
remove the cause of diseases, to which men were subject by the nature of the
climate (Alma 46:40).
Gramps