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Hide the beer, the pastor's here
"It is a mistake to think that Christians ought all to be teetotallers; [Islam], not Christianity, is the teetotal religion." -- C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity

In this intriguing article in New York magazine, Craig Horowitz explores the strange alliance between pro-Israel Jewish groups and conservative American evangelicals.

Without realizing it, Horowitz relates one howling faux pas from Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, founder of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews:

"More and more Jews see the Evangelical community as a strategic ally for Israel. ... In fact, the Evangelicals may now be seen as even more important allies than the American Jewish community itself. But are Jews willing to have a beer with them? I'm not so sure."

A beer!?! Eckstein has spent more than 20 years working with evangelical Christians in America and he still doesn't realize that evangelicals don't drink beer?

This is a religious subculture that -- despite its claims of a strictly "literal" hermeneutic -- believes that Jesus and his disciples drank non-alcoholic grape juice at the Last Supper. They believe Christ's first miracle was turning water into Welch's at the wedding in Cana....