I'm forty-five pages into my new, as yet untitled, Tim Rathbone mystery.  In the story, Pastor Tim takes a glass of Scotch and gets a disapproving look for a member of his congregation, Sister Blankenship.  Here's how he explains his views on drinking:
"Many fundamentalist and all Pentecostal denominations forbid drinking alcohol and cite various scriptures to back that up.  They claim that when Jesus turned water into wine, what he made was unfermented grape juice, which, they say, is what people mostly drank in biblical times.  That’s nonsense.  When the ruler of the feast at Canaan tasted the wind, he said, “This is good stuff.” He did not say, “Welch’s the children will be so pleased.”  Later on, the Pharisees called Jesus a drunk because he drank with the common people.  Having that drink with Sean helped me feel Christ-like.  Thinking of those Pharisees, I smiled back at Blankenship and took another swig."

I realize this may offend some abstemious Christians.  Get over yourselves.

The following review is also published at goodreads.com.

AMERICAN GOSPEL: GOD, THE FOUNDING FATHERS, AND THE MAKING OF A NATION
Jon Meachan

In my years as a minister, I came to believe that The United States of America was founded as a Christian nation and, somehow, fell away from the true faith. As most Fundamentalists, I believed that America is the New Israel, chosen by God to be a haven of holiness and a light to the world, the Shining City on a Hill. It took me years to break out of that mindset. In "American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation," Jon Meacham puts order to what I had put together on my own. America was, in fact, founded as a nation where all religions could exist in peace. Americans would be free to worship--or not worship--as they chose, not as dictated by the government. Freedom of religion had long been a sticking point in America. Roger Williams and Ann Hutchinson were expelled from Massachusetts because the Puritans had established a colony that granted freedom for their own religion, not anyone else's. Later, Virginia law decreed that parents could have their children taken away if they did not baptize their children in the Anglican religion. These an d other stories showed the Founders that, "civil societies dominated by compulsory religious rigidity were unhappy and intolerant, while religious liberty seemed to produce more prosperous, stable, and popular cultures. The Founders' own views on religion would not track well with the prevailing conservative view of today's American Church. In the treat with Tripoli, President John Adams wrote that America was not founded on the Christian religion. Franklin and Jefferson did not believe in the divinity of Jesus and, "the Holy Trinity was seen as an invention of a corrupt church more interested in temporal power than in true religion." In the recent Presidential election, religion again became an national issue, from Romney's Mormonism to the religious objections to contraception. Once again, the myth that America was founded as a Christian nation was proffered as truth by the revisionist history of religious ultra-conservatives. "American Gospel" combats this ignorance with clear, well-researched history. Anyone who is repulsed by what is going on in the American church needs to read this book.

There's a new wrinkle in the controversy surrounding the Fed mandate that for-profit corporations cover contraception in their health insurance for employees.  A Christianity Today article posted Feb. 1 discusses the question of the personhood of corporations.

A number of for-profit corporations are suing the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), claiming that the government's mandate that employees' medical insurance cover conception violates the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).  The article quotes the law: "Government shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability..."

The argument goes like this: The government has no right to mandate that a corporation provide contraception when the owners of the corporation have a religious objection to the practice.  The question, then, becomes, is a corporation a person?  Mitt Romney thinks so.  And the Citizens United  decision gives credence to the personhood of corporations.

This brings the conversation into some very murky places.  For example, let's say a for-profit corporation is owned by Catholics who adhere to their church's proscription against contraception. Under RFRA, they would not be required to provide contraception in their employees' health insurance.  But it could go beyond that.  By the same logic, a for-profit corporation owned by a member of Jehovah's Witnesses could refuse insurance for blood transfusions.  And a Christian Scientist could refuse to provide any health insurance and promise to pray for ill employees and then give them something to read.

And I wonder about the health care employees in Utica, NY where all three hospitals in the city are Catholic-run.  The hospitals are not-for-profit, and, therefore, exempt form the HHS mandate.  Will there be no contraception for these workers?  I emailed that question to one of the hospitals--St. Luke's-Faxton--but they never answered me.

The complications keep coming.  Corporations are set up to put a barrier between the owner's assets and any possible liability.  But if the owners link themselves too closely to the corporation by their religious observance, then they might lose that protection from liability.

I don't have an answer.  The federal court rulings have been contradictory, and eventually, the Nine Wise Ones will have to rule.  But it shows that, in the mind of employers, the needs of employees are secondary to the rules of religion, especially when it will allow them to save money by eliminating contraception coverage from health insurance.