March 15,1997
Dear Br. Smith:
It is spring in East Tennessee. The flowers are blooming, the birds are returning to serenade us with their corrals, frogs and crickets are awakening from their winter beds in the mud of the marshes and creeks, and the breeze is blowing fresh scents of wildflowers across the land to dispel the icy blasts of winter. The area farmers are already preparing the tobacco beds for spring planting. Being a recent immigrant to Tennessee and not much taken with tobacco, never having smoked, I know very little about this lucrative crop. It seems that every small land owner in our part of the state has a half acre of less of tobacco. Rarely do farmers seem to grow more then an acre.
From what I can observe and make enquiry, most tobacco planters
are retired people, or use this crop to supplement a meager income.
Well paying jobs in our county are scarce. Most people work at
or just above the minimum wage. Perhaps they supplement their
welfare check with a few hundred pounds of tobacco. It almost
seems that this cash crop is considered as money in the bank,
or a small savings account, or a meager supplement to a full time
job. Recently, the national government, along with some social
crusaders, desiring to protect us from our own foolishness, are
endeavoring to ban outright or at least forcefully discourage
the planting and use of tobacco. I have been assured, that should
such measures succeed, many a small property owner in the county
would be forced onto the welfare rolls and experience considerable
financial deprivation. The folks in this area are a proud and
independent people and shun the welfare economy as far as possible.
This is it should be. East Tennessee, I understand, was settled
by Irish Scoots people several centuries ago, who desired nothing
so much as to be left alone to pursue their own independent lives
as they saw fit. This is good. Self-sufficiency and practical
economy are to be praised. If more citizens of this great country
would practice these virtues, our country and society would be
the better for it.
What puzzles me, however, is how Christians can conscientiously
grow tobacco, attend church on Sunday, and expect the Lord’s
blessing upon them and their crop. I have a rather unique philosophy
on the growing and use of tobacco that I explained to a neighbor
the other night as we were returning home from one a small country
store. I believe anyone has a right to grow tobacco and even use
it, if they so desire. The federal government has no business
controlling or preventing its cultivation, production, harvesting,
selling, and use. From the national political stand point, I am
an economic and political conservative. Yet, from the spiritual
stand point, I have a totally different view point. Tobacco is
a poison, poisoning the temple of God, our bodies. There is no
redeeming value in the use of this weed, it pullets the air, fouls
the breath, destroys lives and heath, and lessens spirituality
in the one who produces, sells, and uses it. How often have we
attended church or other spiritual gatherings, to be greeted with
the foul smell of tobacco smoke in the air. The use of this poison
fouls the clothing and skin and hair of the user until they walk
in a veritable cloud of tobacco smoke. It clings to them, to the
furniture in their houses, to the cars they drive, to the chairs
they sit in, to the books and magazines they read, to everything
they touch, use, or handle.
Can God be glorified by the tobacco user or producer? I think
not. When one uses tobacco, the Holy Spirit is driven from the
life for He cannot sanction such a pollution of His temple as
is caused by tobacco smoke and nicotine poison. But it is the
grower that concerns me more then the user. How Christians can
conscientiously grow and sell tobacco while claiming the blessings
of the Lord is beyond my understanding. Only greed and a deliberate
blindness to the effects, on others, of this poison, allows them
to ignore their responsibility and accountability before the Lord.
Tobacco will be planted and sold by someone. Where there is a
market, after all, there are suppliers, but they need not be Christians.
We are accountable for our brothers. Christ made this plain when
he told Cain, “Ye, thou art thy brothers keeper,” meaning
we have a responsibility toward our brother, neighbor, friend,
relative, or family member to so conduct ourselves that we neither
endanger their lives or health or weaken them spiritually. We
also have a responsibility to do all in our power to establish
the image of God in our families and neighbors, brothers and sisters.
How can Christ’s image, the very image of God, be seen smoking
a cigarette. Did Christ smoke? Then how can we or other Christians
traffic in a substance that only destroys life, robs money that
is better spent for more healthful things, destroys health, disfigures
the countenance by robing it of heath and radiance, and ruins
millions of lives? Are we not held accountable by God for the
result of the tobacco we grow. If our tobacco causes my brother
to suffer ill health or die, am I not directly responsible. Sure,
he will smoke, if he desires, but another, not myself, will incur
God’s wrath for the destruction of a life for which He suffered
and died.
As Christian men, let us abandon the production of tobacco, and,
instead, economize or trust the Lord for the means we might otherwise
earn through several hundred pounds of this stinking weed. The
smile and approbation of Christ are of greater genuine worth then
a few extra hundred of dollars per annum. Many Christians, I fear,
need to repent of their careless neglect of Christ in the person
of their brother before they can enter the eternal heavens and
many will approach the day of Christ’s second advent, saddened
to hear from the lips of Christ himself, the scathing rebuke,
“Depart from me ye that work iniquity. I never know you.”
It is sin to traffic in tobacco and no sinner will enter the kingdom
of heaven. But, now, while probation lingers and grace offers
mercy and pardon, let us, those who have trafficked in this substance,
repent of our evil ways and come humbly before the throne of grace.
We most assuredly will find peace and pardon and grace to live
without reliance on this crop for our sustenance or extra cash.
May the Lord richly bless you and may Christ grant you wisdom
to lead many hearts to a greater knowledge of Christ as their
personal savior. Your brother in Christ.
Allen A. Benson