The "Hellish Devil's Drink" We Call Coffee

Must credit David Fitch ( @fitchest ) for posting this gem by Jeremy Postal to Twitter.

Today's bizarre bit of history: if I were to ask you what drink the church had at one time labeled a "hellish Devil's drink" you would most likely guess some form of alcohol, right? Well, oddly enough, coffee owned this distinction for a time.

What?! You mean my morning elixir isn't the saintly drink I thought it was? Well, at least not, at one time, in the church's view. Perhaps even more odd was that apparently the church questioned why good Christians should abandon their ales for coffee...now there's something that won't preach today! :)

Also worth noting, according to Postal, as coffee gained popularity in Europe, it wasn't so much the coffee that people were after, as much as it was community. People were attracted to the common ground created by the new coffee houses. They were places for free thinking and gathering. Free thinking and gathering that sometimes ran counter to the dominant culture. Try viewing your local Starbuck's through this lens. Could you see the people lounging there as free thinking rebels on the verge of starting an uprising? That was sometimes how the church viewed these new coffee drinkers.

The next gem I find in this video is this quote attributed to Pope Clement VIII after tasting coffee for the first time: "This Satan's drink is so delicious that it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it. We shall cheat Satan by baptizing it." When was the last time you thought you were cheating Satan by enjoying that morning cup of coffee? Me neither.

And this leads Postal to ask some questions (I love this): "What happened to the free thinkers? What happened to the subversive, counter-cultural ideas? What happened to the kind of people who made the people with the power uneasy?" If coffee was at one time a drink for "rebel rousers" then what happened? Folks, what if we viewed the spaces around our coffee pots at church as places where ideas could meet and flourish? What if we viewed those places as spaces where there was opportunity for new frontiers to be explored?

Am I advocating change for the sake of change? Not even a little. But what ideas have you buried deep because you couldn't find a safe place to share them? What questions have you not asked because you could not find the right setting or atmosphere? What if you found that place around a coffee pot at your church? Let's build these spaces! Let's build some space for the free flow of ideas and discussion. Let's set each other loose to explore the rugged frontier that is a life lived to God. Let's stop expecting everyone to come and sit quietly, without saying a word.

The last little nugget that I found in this video, a quote: "Our coffee is safe and our churches are safe. That's why revolutions won't happen. We need a disruption." Again, I don't believe in change just for the sake of change. But, let's ask ourselves this: in our own context of following God, if there is a disruption needed, do we currently have spaces where it could be explored and discussed?

There's a coffee pot that sits on my desk in my office. If you've got a minute and would like to share some ideas, drop in and I'll pour you a cup. Let's be "rebel rousers" together!