WE> During American prohibition what happened to the Christian custom of
 WE> bread and wine?  Nothing or was it also prohibited to allow only the
 WE> breaking of bread?
 FM> Southern Baptists and probably other denominations as well did not,
 FM> within my lifetime, use "wine" at all in communion services.  They
 FM> usually used Welch's grape juice.
 WE> Interesting to note.  So these churches would not have even this
 WE> communion scruple about prohibition.
   Actually, people in religious denominations in general and Baptists in
particular have believed just about everything under the sun over centuries.
A seminary scholar friend once told me that he had seen Baptist journals from
the 19th century which accepted liquor ads!!  The temperance stand of many of
these churches (Roman Catholics have nothing against drinking in moderation)
stems from their experience on the American frontier when hard drinking DID
create heavy social problems for settlements.  As you know, there came a time
early in the American frontier when it was easier to make the grains into
whiskey and transport them that way over long distances.  
   Interestingly, I know of no relgious denominations that ever made much of 

fuss over tobacco except that generally the deacons went outside of the 
hurch
to smoke.  The anti-tobacco crusade of the past twenty-five or so years is,
oddly enough, staged by puritans OUTSIDE of and without reference to churches
of any kind.  A sort of SECULAR puritanism somewhat akin to the fever that
gripped England during the Cromwellian period ending with the Glorious
Revolution.  The English people were really not NATURAL puritans so the
movement died out.  In the United States where many of them migrated it has
ebbed and flowed, sometimes manifested in religious organizations but often
without reference to them.  
Sincerely, 
                                     Frank
                                                                              
                                                       
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