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James said:
Dear John,

assuming you are of Caucasian descent it might be worth pointing out to your pastor that you have higher levels of alcohol dehydrogenase than your Japanese brethren. Consequently you are less affected by moderate intakes of alcohol. Hence the concern over drunkenness, which can happen to Japanese from a mere sniff of Scotch, is misplaced.

In Christ,

James.

I am Caucasian. Many Japanese people do have an inability to metabolize alcohol well and those that do can become quite affected by alcohol in only a few sips. However, while the percentage of Japanese with that problem is significant (I'm not sure exactly), it is still less than 50%. The other part of the population, which is easily the majority, seem to have the ability to drink nearly unimaginable quantities of alcohol (of course I'm exaggerating and generalizng a bit here, but ...). So I guess my point is that probably the pastor is aware that some people can drink quite a bit without being affected.

I doesn't seem to matter to him the amount that's involved. I say this because he says personally he doesn't think drinking is necessarily a sin for a Christian but that drunkenness is. I would conclude that if all drinking causes drunkenness then drinking would necessarily be a sin.

This issue doesn't seem to be just a church issue but a denominational issue. If I understood him correctly, this is the position of the Presbyterian Church of Japan. That's a little why I was so surprised because I don't usually associate Presbyterian churches with having alcohol/smoking requirements for membership.

John