Over the past two months I have written a series of articles concerned with Doctrine and Covenants Section 89, popularly known as the Word of Wisdom. Though the Word of Wisdom is fairly simple and straight-forward to understand the Latter-day Saints have made it incredibly confusing by adding to it a multitude of ideas, customs, beliefs, and restrictions that are not in the text of the revelation itself.
The reasons for this are numerous. Some, I think, are simply incorrect theology. For example, we often misunderstand the Word of Wisdom as a king of “Law of Health” designed to increase our physical mortal health. This misunderstanding has led to us to misinterpreting the text of the revelation itself, especially in terms of what it promises us for obeying it. I also think that on some level most members of the Church are simply embarrassed by the Word of Wisdom. It prevents us from fitting in with many of the social norms of the rest of society and the idea that God would give such rules seems archaic, as if it was something that belonged to thousands of years ago as opposed to today.
Which has led us to endless rationalizations of the Word of Wisdom as we attempt to explain to others why we think God told us not to drink alcohol, coffee, or tea. It is because they’re addictive. It is because they contain caffeine or tannic acid. It is because they’re unhealthy for you. Never mind that the Word of Wisdom doesn’t make any of these claims or extend any of these as justifications. They all sound more acceptable and less embarrassing than the truth – that we do it because God said so – even though they’re often just factually wrong. Sometimes ridiculously so. For example, the negative health effects of green tea are negligible while green tea does provide some very good health effects. Calling it unhealthy just reveals you to be ignorant and silly which makes the whole faith look foolish. These errors often confuse the faithful about what they should do and why they should do it, which often harms their faith.
This is the collection of articles which were written about the Word of Wisdom to address the many issues, misinterpretations, and misunderstandings we have about this revelation head on. By confronting them I hope to help correct the foundational errors in our understanding of the Word of Wisdom, which in turn helps us to explain why some of the apparent hypocrisies and contradictions of it (like why we can have Red Bull but not coffee) are neither contradictions nor hypocritical. I try my best to explore and explain the purpose of the Word of Wisdom by looking at the text itself and what it tells us it is, not what we have said it is, and how it actually tells us to live, not how we say we should live. I address the historical enforcement of the Word of Wisdom, how alcohol mas been treated by the Church, the many errors we make on the issues of drinking coffee and tea as well as eating meat. Finally, I hope to help set us on a better path of following the Word of Wisdom in a spiritually healthy way that will build and strengthen our faith in Christ and the Restoration through a better understanding and living of this great latter-day revelation.