“Did you see your Church just officially banned green tea?”
“And vaping. That’s days-old news.”
“Mormon news isn’t real to me until the Washington Post covers it.”
“Fair enough. The best take I’ve seen so far is Jana Riess’s.”
“The Washington Post agrees: they quote her. The Word of Wisdom is ‘not necessarily a slam-dunk in terms of clarity.’ That seems accurate.”
“The problem is our cultural norms surrounding the Word of Wisdom have strayed so far from its literal text that we’re all left wading through layers of shame and confusion.”
“You know what Jana or you or some other sassy Mormon feminist should do? Write a Rachel Held Evans style book: ‘A Year of Word of Wisdomhood.’ It would be hilarious.”
“I’d get excommunicated.”
“For exploring the original meaning of your own scripture?”
“The book would encourage members to become beer-drinking, farmers-market shopping, vegetarians! Deseret Book and red-state Mormon bishops would ban it in three blinks.”
“Wait, beer is in the Word of Wisdom?”
“Yes — let’s read it!”
“All grain is good for the food of man; as also the fruit of the vine; that which yieldeth fruit, whether in the ground or above the ground … and barley for all useful animals, and for mild drinks, as also other grain.”
“And farmers market hippies?”
“All wholesome herbs God hath ordained for the constitution, nature, and use of man. Every herb in the season thereof, and every fruit in the season thereof; all these to be used with prudence and thanksgiving.
Yea, flesh also of beasts and of the fowls of the air, I, the Lord, have ordained for the use of man with thanksgiving; nevertheless they are to be used sparingly; And it is pleasing unto me that they should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine.”
“Huh. What else is in there?”
“Start at the beginning and find out!”
“A word of wisdom … not by commandment and constraint…”
“NOT by commandment? Isn’t following the Word of Wisdom a temple recommend requirement?”
“Yes. But if you confess you love steak and don’t shop at farmer’s markets the Bishop will laugh at you. Moving on…”
“That inasmuch as any man drinketh wine or strong drink among you, behold it is not good, neither meet in the sight of your Father, only in assembling yourselves together to offer up your sacraments before him.”
“Wine is not good, except for the Sacrament? I’ve been to your meetings. You don’t even use grape juice. You use water!”
“Yeah, we jettisoned the wine. Supposedly it’s because of some random story where God warned Joseph Smith that his secular enemies would poison the alcohol, but I don’t think we actually switched until like 1905.”
“And, behold, this should be wine, yea, pure wine of the grape of the vine, of your own make.”
“Pure wine of the grape of the vine of your OWN MAKE!? God just commanded you to open your own winery!?”
“There were nineteenth century wineries and distilleries founded by Mormon pioneers. A whole bunch of early Prophets drank from them. They got abandoned in the early twentieth century when the Prohibition movement stepped up nationwide and the Church decided to make the alcohol ban universal for ordinary members.”
“But seriously. God just commanded you to found a winery.”
“Technically I don’t need a full winery. I could just smush grapes in a teeny barrel in my basement.”
“Which you could only use for the Sacrament. How? Slipping it to the teenagers on Sunday morning won’t work. And you’re a woman. You can’t bless it. You don’t have the Priesthood.”
“I could probably conscript a liberal Mormon guyfriend into consecrating it for me.”
“So now you’re plotting to operate a winery and spin-off Sacrament Meeting in our basement? I think you just founded a cult.”
“Like I said, writing this book would get me excommunicated.”
“Well, if you’re going to hell or outer darkness or whatever anyway, you might as well go all in. You should mass-market the wine to other literalist members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!”
“I don’t think there’s a market for that.”
“Of course there’s a market. Every single ex-Mormon would buy one bottle just for the hilarity of it. All we need is a label. What should we name our wine?”
“Mormon Heresy?”
“Of Our Own Make?”
“Fruit of That Tree?”
“Mingled with Scripture?”
“Oh! I know! I know!”
“?”
“D&C 89!”
