Bipolar,
Try to remember that tone can't be conveyed over the internet. I know these two gentlemen and they are nothing if not gracious. They want what's best for you. And we all live in a world where misinformation remains supreme. And so it is frustrating when people seem to believe what is very theologically incorrect. The frustration isn't directed at you. The frustration is directed at the ideas you've been taught. I share that frustration because I hear things, including in my own church, like "Well it wasn't wine in the Bible it was just grape juice", most recently, was when a couples 21 year old daughter (who still lives at home) was being encouraged by her friends to go out and drink; and she didn't want to. They wanted biblical reasons to say she shouldn't. What was great is, I've been there. And while telling them that I simply would have to lie to tell them the Bible commanded she not drink (And debunk their notions that the alcohol in the Bible was 'weaker' or 'just juice'), it was perfectly reasonable for her to tell her friends she didn't want to drink. Frankly, drinking just because you're 21 now, as some sort of 'rite of passage', is silly. Asinine, really. If you want to drink responsibly, go for it. But if you don't have a desire to drink but are doing it just because it's not illegal anymore? That just seems ludicrous to me.
Actually, I encouraged her to go to one of my favorite bars. You have to be 21 to enter, they card you at the door. (There's your 'rite of passage'). They have every kind of soda or tea you could want, great cheap food, and a friendly atmosphere.
The "they really meant juice" is a common thread out here in Baptist country. Because you have two opposing fronts. One, you have the Puritan influence and the early colonial sense of morality that included abstinence from alcohol. John Wesley also encouraged abstinence (though himself drank, and even brewed his own beer.) For him, it was more about supporting an industry that willingly destroyed families. We're not talking major multinational distributors. Often we're talking about the local distillery, who would happily sell gin to the town drunk and he'd go home near-passed out drunk and beat up on his wife. John Wesley saw these things (that specific example is made up but it illustrates an example of what might've been happening), and thought that Christians shouldn't support those industries. No different than people today who don't shop at Wal-Mart because of substandard wages or buy products produced by companies who use child labor or inhumanely sourced animal parts. It's not the all-in-one grocery stores, foreign-made goods, or tennis shoes are bad. It's that those who are producing them, in the minds of some, shouldn't be supported by a morally guided Christian.
So you take that; simply, Alcohol is damaging communities. We in the church need to find a way to prevent that. One response, from some, which makes sense (even if it isn't the best) is abstinence.
But now they're also Sola Scriptura, Bible inerrantists/literalists. So how do they push Abstinence, while also preaching that they draw everything, even modern social issues, from the scriptures; and take it all literally and find it inerrant? Well; it's a pretty futile effort because there really isn't any scripture to suggest abstinence. (Plenty to discourage drunkenness and even irresponsible partying, but to single those out and not the alcohol itself definitely illustrates an expectation of judicious use. Paul, et al, don't talk about the evils of alcohol; they talk about getting drunk.) And to top it off, Wine especially is such an important component in the scriptures. Jesus serves it with his disciples, among his first public miracles is turning water into wine (and the guests got drunk, and some already were drunk), in fact Jesus grew up in an area which included grapes and wine as major economic components. Even today some of those areas Jesus ministered in are crawling with olives and grapes.
So how do you remain Sola Scriptura, Bible Inerrant, Bible Literalist; AND support abstinence from Alchohol? Well, as I said, it's a futile effort. The closest thing you can do, is recognize that "Wine", historically, doesn't necessarily need to be fermented. In fact, the first pasteurized grape juice (there was unfermented wine before it, but you couldn't store it), was called "Welches Unfermented Communion Wine", and it was designed for Methodist circuit riders to have a preserved, storable source of unfermented wine. It became "Welches Grape Juice" later. (Welch was a Methodist Pastor who lost his voice; unable to preach he became a physician, and later dentist, and developed a system for preserving unfermented wine). So if you ignore the original scriptures, you could say "Well they meant unfermented wine". But, it's ultimately a weak argument, because we know from the context of the original greek that that's not the case. It's true they didn't have sophisticated instruments to get the exact alcohol content down like we do today; but they had been doing this for a long time. It was wine. The kind that could get you drunk.
Now, just to throw a wrench into things (one of my favorite hobbies). Some suggest wine should be used for communion because that's what Jesus used. And it makes a lot of sense. But those same people don't always suggest using Matzo for communion. Interestingly, our Orthodox brothers and sisters (Orthodox as in the Orthodox churches, i.e. Greek Orthodox, not Orthodox as in Orthodox Theology) specifically forbid unleavened bread. Looking at the yeast in bread as a representation of new life. And thus seeing a distinction between 'dead' unleavened bread, and 'alive' leavened bread. So they use wine, and "regular" bread. (And I know some UM's who prefer this as well for the same reasons). And this also manifests itself in the Catholic-Protestant differences in Communion. Catholics tend to be very focused on the crucifixion, whereas Protestants tend to focus more on the resurrection. Thus Catholics ALWAYS use unleavened bread, and many protestants use leavened bread.
The point of all this is, we all have varying traditions that are borne out of the last supper; and at communion we're celebrating something that is new, that was INSTITUTED at the Last Supper; but truly became real at the resurrection. We are not recreating the last supper; that was simply the model for what was created. So things that make theological sense, work. Grape juice or wine, leavened or unleavened bread.
(Though the same argument for leavened bread; that it has life, works for using fermented wine. And I'm all for that argument. I just never have liked the 'Jesus used wine so we should to' line. I think the theology of the Eucharist is broader than trying to recreate the upper room)
And, just to be clear; I'm all for wine or grape juice; whichever makes sense in your context. Although the 'ban' on using wine for communion has been lifted, arguably it hasn't because our liturgy still calls for the "Pure, unfermented juice of a grape". And the BOD calls for using the UMC's official liturgies at the table. (An interesting polity conundrum). I also wouldn't consider consuming fermented wine with communion a break of my own personal lifestyle of abstinence from Alcohol. Surely consuming consecrated communion wine can be nothing but Holy.
