And it came to piss . . .

THERE’S always been a strange relationship between Christians and booze. Must go right back two thousand years to when the wedding guests at Cana were just getting off their faces and realised they’d run out of the plonk.

More on that in a moment in a special fairy story approved by biblical scholars (and acquired by The Freethinker at enormous expense), when we take you back in time using our unique “Read more” button below (for those reading this on the front page, that is, and not via the permalink). But let’s stick with the present – for the present.

Three stories have come our way this week: one concerns a Jesus brand of wine grown on the banks of Galilee. We kid you not. One concerns a pub in Brighton, selling get-off-your-face cocktails, which the local church wizard has just blessed.

And one is a bit more sensible. Not a story, just a picture. And it’s here on the right.

First, Pini Haroz, a wine importer from Israel based in Georgia, USA, is marketing Grapes of Galilee to American Christians, according to the entertainment section (!) of The Age in Australia.

The label has two portraits of Jesus, and the slogan, “Sown beside the Sea of Galilee, Watered by the Jordan River, Pissed on by Arabs”. Er, aaagh, no, scrub that last one – it shouldn’t have got in there. We’ll edit it out in the lunchtime edition.

Anyway, predictably, the Christians are complaining about it, says The Age:

Ed Stetzer, director of LifeWay Research, an arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, says Christians should be offended.

“Jesus chased people out of the temple for selling products in God’s name,” he says. “He did not put his name on the label to pump up sales.”

And there’s more:

Beyond that, by putting Jesus’ image on a bottle of wine “you’re associating Jesus with getting drunk and people don’t necessarily want to be doing that,” says Mara Einstein, author of Brands of Faith: Marketing Religion in a Commercial Age.

Then there’s the pub in Brighton. It terms itself a pre-club pub. This is where people can pay rip-off prices to get off their faces before they have to start paying the astronomically rip-off, criminal prices in the club.

According to Brighton’s Argus, Adam Burley has just opened a cocktail bar in West Street, Brighton, called the Oxygen, and the local mojo man has been invited in to do the mumbo-jumbo over it to ensure it’s a success. Father Robert is a Catholic, so that’s OK: they like a drop of the hard stuff.

The Argus says:

Mr Burley wanted to do everything he could to prevent trouble at his business, which is his first venture.

He said: “I felt like I needed the blessing because I wanted to do everything possible to make sure things go well.

“I was trying to think of all the different ways I could hoard [sic] off any trouble that might come here.”

The bar is listed as a “pre[-]club venue”, holds around 100 people and serves cocktails until 2 a.m.

So the first punch-up or knifing will, once and for all, prove, that God can’t save the world from pissed-up loons who like to do damage to one another.

And, last, a bit of sense. The label, pictured way up there somewhere, brings a breath of the fresh air of sanity as it shows us the most likely way in which we moved from primordial slime to the sort of slime that now, when it can stand up, walks on two legs. It’s named after the mountain range in the States, one supposes, and, as far as one can tell, the beer isn’t available hereabouts in Blighty. You’ll just have to enjoy the label. Print it off. Cut out and keep.

But let us return now to the historical connection between Christians and hooch. (Cue swirly music – harps, zithers, kazoos, Nazarene bagpipes). It began a long time ago . . .

We go back two thousand years to Cana, back to when – if you can remember all the way back to the introduction to this post – the wedding guests were just getting off their faces and realised they’d run out of the plonk.

“Here, JC,” they said. “We’ve heard you can do cool stuff. How ’bout, y’know, you, well— Look, we’ve run out of booze, man.”

“Oh, hang on a mo,” says JC. “Just fixing this kid’s severed hand back on with a bit o’ my mojo, man. It’s wicked, innit?”

“Hey, JC, we hear you been chirpin’ some pretty buff gals today, man.”

“Oh, yeah, man, chung, they was, man. Some geezers were gonna stone one of ‘em, man, for, y’know, doin’ it wiv geezers wot are not her man, man, you know, man, so I says, ‘Hey, man, chill. Cotch down, y’know? What you doin’ is sooo not cool, man.’ So this geezer, he says to me, all sarcastic, y’know, ‘Oh, man, sha’up!’ he says. ‘Nim, nim, yadda, yadda, blah, blah, you talk crap, man.’ So I says, ‘Look man, let the geezer what never done that stuff get stoned first.’ An’ suddenly, man, they all say they virgins! ‘Hey, man,’ says this geezer. ‘You’re cool man. Wanna cotch down my yard? Got some real cool stuff. Proper nang, y’know? Blow your face off.’ ‘No, man,’ I says. ‘Gotta go to a weddin’ in Cana, innit, y’know, an’ I know I’m gonna be axed to turn some water into wine.’ ”

And it came to pass that, in a certain upper room of a pub, JC hung out with his bruvvers and sloshed back more wine and, with so many people being stoned in those parts in those times, several had the munchies. So there was bread aplenty.

JC ripped pieces from the loaf and said unto his brethren, “Bruvvers, scoff this. It’s cool. It’s bits of me. It’s wicked. An’ I got some of that weddin’ cake left if you want some.”

And they looked askance at their bro, and distaste did creep upon their countenance, but they obeyed.

“Now cop some of this booze. It’s hot. Really cool, y’know? This is my blood, man.”

And so they did pour forth the wicked hooch from a pitcher, and did pass it among themselves, and he did say unto them, “Not mackin’ out wiv you bruvvers no more. Goin’ to hang out somewhere else for the afternoon tomorrow. So eat up and get pissed. You’re doin’ this to remember me, innit?”

And so the centuries passed, and even today little old ladies and gentlemen of a superstitious disposition trot down the aisle to the rail on Sunday mornings to partake of wine and a little tasteless biscuit thing, and stagger back again, burping the words of “Eternal Father, Strong to Save” to the tune of “Colonel Bogey”, believing they’ve committed an act of cannibalism and rejoicing in the fact.

Next week’s story: How Gentle Jesus and Harry Potter fought off the Dark Lord Voldemort and had a happy Hallowe’en at Hogwarts.