Vaping, Coffee, Tea And Pot — Part 5

101 for teams is a valuable resource for anyone wanting a simplified view of the Mormon religion from a Christian perspective is one-to-one for teens is available at the Utah lighthouse bookstore in Salt Lake City or MRM.org .1 examines the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from a biblical perspective viewpoint on Mormonism is sponsored by Mormonism research ministry since 1979 Mormonism research ministry has been dedicated to equipping the body of Christ with answers regarding the Christian faith in a manner that expresses gentleness and respect. And now, your host for today's viewpoint on Mormonism.

Does the Mormon word of wisdom prohibit energy drinks welcome to this additional viewpoint on Mormonism.

I'm your host, Bill McKeever, founder and director Mormonism research ministry with me today is Eric Johnson. My colleague at MRM we been looking this week at an article titled sleeping coffee, tea, and marijuana that was published in the new era magazine. As I mention this is written for younger adults in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints late teens and so forth.

This is the August 2019 addition and basically what it was supposed to do was to clear up a few items that young people today may be confused about when it comes to the word of wisdom well so far we've looked at the topic of VPN and E cigarettes, mochas, lattes, marquee autos, green tea and iced tea.

And yesterday we discussed another paragraph that was in the short article dealing with marijuana and opioids, but there was one topic that I found suspiciously missing and I couldn't figure out why.

In an article such as this that is written for young people.

Why was this topic overlooked. Now it's not that this issue has been ignored completely because it has been discussed the topic of energy drinks was brought up in the December 2008 issue of inside magazine in an article written by Thomas J Boutin spoke BOUD but it's interesting what he does.

He uses the caffeine content as being the real bad guy in this and certainly an overabundance of caffeine can cause health problems mostly in some people rather than others and others don't seem to be affected by in a negative way, but this topic of energy drinks is a little more controversial but it's something that a lot of young people certainly do partake I found this article on health line.com titled our energy drinks, good or bad for you and this is how it starts off it says people of all ages consume them and they continue to grow in popularity, but some health professionals have warned that energy drinks may have harmful consequences, which has led many people to question their safety then goes on to explain what energy drink is and of course we know a lot of the famous brands of courses. Red bull and there's monster and there's rockstar full throttle and then you even have the small little bottles called the five hour energy drinks, which is only not even 2 ounces but has as much as 200 mg of caffeine in it, and I admit I keep a bottle of this in my car and if I'm on a long drive and I just feel like maybe I need to be a little bit more alert then by all means a minute probably take one of these and I find that they do help, but that's not something that I take all the time.

It's not something that I'm doing every day. But when it comes to these energy drinks.

This is something that young people in particular often drink on a regular basis. The biggest problem people have with the energy drinks. Of course, is the sugar content.

It's very high in sugar, but there's also a high caffeine content as well limit is read you from this article, the bullet points that it has, for instance, it says on the good side that energy drinks can improve brain function, energy drinks may help people function when they're tired, but then on the negative size it says energy drinks may cause heart problems in some and it says that there are concerns that energy drinks may contribute to heart problems. But what ice felt surprising as it says over 20,000 trips to the emergency department are associated with energy drink use every year in the United States alone. It also says that consuming energy drinks may increase blood pressure and heart rate, and decrease important markers of blood vessel function which could be bad for heart health. It also says that if you have a history of heart disease.

Consuming energy drinks occasionally, and in reasonable amounts, is unlikely to cause heart problems in healthy adults with no history of heart disease.

So there is some controversy in this, but you would think in writing an article such as this one, sleeping, coffee, tea, and marijuana written to young people and it's supposed to clarify in the minds of young people what is allowed and what is prohibited for young Latter Day Saints.

You would think that this would've been listed in this article, but it's not that, as I said, it's not that it's never been talked about before the article by Thomas J Bell B OU D titled the energy drink epidemic that was in and sign magazine for December 2008, had this to say while we are counseled against taking addictive substances or harmful drugs. A word of wisdom does not specifically prohibit caffeine. However, I believe that if we follow the spirit of the word of wisdom. We will be very careful about what we consume, particularly any substance that can have a negative impact on our bodies. This is true regarding any drug substance or even food that may be damaging to one's health. This includes caffeine, notice the caffeine content is a concern of this author and this was found in the end sign magazine but is back in 2008 spent over a decade since the inside, I think had anything to do with his I'm not aware of any other articles that were written since that time, but I'm just surprised that it was not included in this article in the August 2019 addition of new era, since it seems like the church wants to clarify things that are kind of gray when it comes to the word of wisdom.

Alcohol use. It says that specifically tobacco use. It says that specifically in the word of wisdom that's probably why it wasn't listed in this article, but it's talking about the new greater areas and trying to help young people discern in their context, those things that are okay as opposed to things that should be prohibited. There was an article in the Salt Lake Tribune from September 5, 2012. The headline of the article says okay Mormons drink up Coke and Pepsi are okay in a talked about how the church came out posting the statement on his website saying that the church does not prohibit the use of caffeine and at the face health code reference to hot drinks does not go beyond tea and coffee was talking a lot about the sodas as well that so there was never banned because of the caffeine you wrote an article Bill on our website.

Actually it was first published in Mormonism researched which is a free publication if you'd like to get that you go to our website and you can actually subscribe to that comes out every other month, but the name of the article.

So now it isn't the caffeine and you can find that@mrm.org/caffeine-intake. Can you give some of these quotes to say wait a minute here. It's been very clear that the caffeine plays a major issue and let me just give you one instance when it comes to sodas. This is from Spencer W. Kimball 12 president of the church, the teachings of Spencer W. Kimball is the name of the book, page 202 and he said this, I never drink any of the cola drinks and my personal hope would be that no one would however they are not included in the word of wisdom in its technical application. Then he goes on and says with reference to the cola drinks. The church has never officially taken any attitude on this, but I personally do not put them in the class as with the tea and coffee because the Lord specifically mentioned them. The hot drinks so he says well you shouldn't drink it even though it's not officially there, but we talked on Monday about how confusing this whole thing is because different leaders say different things at different times. I mean we have a guy like George q. Cannon of the first presidency who said that you shouldn't drink tea, coffee, chocolate, cocoa, and all drinks of this kind are not good for man. He says that in Journal of discourses, volume 12, page 221 and then he also says on page 223 we must not permit them to drink liquor or hot drinks or hot soups or use tobacco or other articles that are injurious, but when it comes to this issue of the colas certainly Bruce R. McConkie, apostle of the church in Mormon doctrine, he wrote that in 1966, second edition, page 845. He says certainly the partaking of cola drinks, though not included within the measuring standard here set out is in violation of the spirit of the word of wisdom that you have different leaders saying different things. What is the Latter Day Saints supposed to think the leaders can't even agree on what the standards are for what the word of wisdom said my question is why was God so unclear when he uses hot drinks. Why wasn't he more specific and help us understand what we should know for this 21st century because certainly had to know God's an all-knowing God even in Mormonism certainly should have known that there were to be other issues like vape bean and green teas and other things like that that would have given us more clarification that so that the leaders could have helped us to better understand what were supposed to do. I think a huge confusion is just over this caffeine issue when you talk to many Latter Day Saints on the street and you asked him why is there a prohibition against coffee many times they will tell you it's the caffeine content.

We wrote about this. One of our books. We had a Mormon apologist respondent say that it wasn't that at all that he went on to talk about will you can burn your throat from drinking coffee.

That's too hot will.

What fool is going to drink scalding water on a regular basis. Let's be serious about this and few people are going to do that. But this caffeine issue becomes very confusing and as I point out in that article that you just mentioned. Caffeine was the topic at the time in the early 20th century and mid 20th century, and if Bruce McConkie thinks that cola drinks or problem. What separates a cola drink from some of your other soft drinks wilts the caffeine content and if that's the problem then why shouldn't these energy drinks be a problem for young Latter Day Saints.

You take for instance, all of the energy drinks, including monster rockstar full throttle they come.

Usually a 16 ounce can. And there's about 160 mg of caffeine in that can and if caffeine's a problem realized hundred 60 mg and a 16 ounce can. There's 100 mg of caffeine in a cup of coffee. Granted, the coffee is a lesser amount.

Usually 8 to 10 ounces but most kids are not drinking 8 to 10 ounces of an energy drink their drinking the whole can and probably not even stopping it.

Just one.

It's interesting we live in the state of Utah and so were not able to buy hard liquor at the grocery store like you can in most other states, and so the idea of calf nation in the sodas was a big deal. I'm going to say even just 10 years ago because if you went into a 7-Eleven or top stop and you were to go to the fountain about half of them are more were decaffeinated drink. You don't see as much anymore. In fact, I understand there serving caffeinated sodas at BYU where they used a band that completely so it was interesting how things change and who's doing the changing. Why was it not allowed, 10, 15, 20 years ago. Why is it loud today, nobody really tells us. I think those are some great questions and I think we need to reiterate Eric as we said earlier in the series. I have no problem with the church cautioning its members about things that may cause them physical harm. I don't have a problem with that at all and I think some of these warnings are very legitimate. However, when you cross the boundary and start partaking of these certain items a sin, then I think you've gone outside of the parameters of the Bible and I think we need to be careful about that. Certainly if things are harmful. If you are a wise Christian stay away from him. Wisdom dictates that, but to put some of these things is the Mormon church does into a category of sin that can prevent you from receiving celestial exultation as they understand and teach it.

I think certainly crosses the line.

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