“They Should Take of the Wine of the Cup”

Jana Reiss

Although Mormons drank wine with the sacrament into the twentieth century, for approximately the last hundred years they have substituted water for wine in their services. This is in line with today’s strict interpretation of the “Word of Wisdom,” or the health code that is laid out in Doctrine and Covenants 89

Although members of the nineteenth-century Church sometimes drank modest amounts of wine and beer, contemporary Mormons abstain entirely from alcohol and also eschew illicit drugs, tobacco, coffee, and tea.

The Book of Mormon: Selections Annotated & Explained

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