[nrajeffreturns;147045]I was aware that a relative FEW churches offer
the OPTION of grape juice for
recovering alcoholics who don't want to EVER touch a drop of alcohol. But in all likelihood it's
far fewer that use
ONLY grape juice because they have
BANNED the "evil leaven wine" from their regular communion.
The way I know that probably no church in 1820 used grape juice, is because I know that the process of pasteurizing grape juice so it wouldn't ferment wasn't invented until
1869.
Pastor Welch was a Wesleyan. Wesleyans thought like you--that only nonalcoholic grape juice should be used for communion. But they didn't exist in 1820. The Wesleyan movement was created in
1843.
To further your education, see the Wikipedia articles on Welch's and on Thomas Bramwell Welch.
In 1820, virtually none of the Christian churches on earth used unfermented grape juice. The Catholic Church REQUIRES that the communion wine be wine, or mustum--grape juice that has at least started to ferment. (Mustum is wine that started to "leaven" and then had the fermentation process stopped)
AFAIK,
ZERO Protestant churches had switched to grape juice
until AFTER 1820. Even today, the only ones that have such a policy are the United Methodist church, most Baptists, the 7th Day Adventists, and some Reformed/Presbyterian churches offer it as an
option.
(According to the wiki article on Eucharist, "The bread and "fruit of the vine" indicated in Matthew, Mark and Luke as the elements of the Lord's Supper[38] are interpreted
by many Baptists as unleavened bread (although leavened bread is often used) and, in line with
the historical stance of some Baptist groups (since the mid-19th century) against partaking of alcoholic beverages, grape juice, which they commonly refer to simply as "the Cup."
So
in the case of the Baptists, switching to grape juice was not because they believed that leaven means sin. It's because many Baptists were part of the Temperance movement that was against recreational alcohol consumption to the point of total abstinence....like the LDS had already done.
So you are saying that
the majority of Christian churches of the world "lieth in sin" every time they perform the Eucharist.
Can you imagine what anti-LDS people would say about
JOSEPH SMITH if
HE had said that the churches of 1820 had changed the biblical way of doing things, and had replaced them with sinful doctrines and ordinances?
Why, they'd say that Joseph Smith was....
teaching hatred of Christians!!!